Do you think of your archived backup data as a waste of space? It’s time to change your perspective: backup data is the most important data you have. Far from not being useful, it’s the most complete record of your business you have. With the right secondary storage tools, backup data can support analytics, data protection, and application development projects.
Secondary Storage Supports Analytics
One of the most important trends in information technology today is the growth of big data and analytics. Companies that make their historical data available to analytics, rather than inaccessible in backup storage, discover valuable insights that drive business decisions. Today’s secondary storage platforms make it possible to run analytics jobs directly on the platform, rather than requiring additional storage and processing to support the jobs.
Secondary Storage Supports Data Protection
Through the use of secondary storage, companies are able to keep historical data to satisfy compliance requirements. In traditional secondary storage, data wasn’t readily accessible. Today’s secondary storage is highly accessible and supports rapid recovery with minimal data loss through the use of snapshots and clones. Integration with cloud services makes preserving older data cost effective.
Secondary Storage Supports Application Development
Rapid application development has always been a challenge for businesses. Developers need realistic data to test applications against, but creating development copies from backups of production typically requires a support team’s assistance. With secondary storage that provides copy data management, developers can access the data copies they need and continue development without delay.
Hyperconverged Secondary Storage
Hyperconverged secondary storage lets businesses easily use their secondary storage to support goals beyond archiving. The storage is designed to scale easily and has direct support for the use cases discussed above. Hyperconverged secondary storage is also designed to integrate with cloud-based storage, supporting a cost-effective tiered storage approach.
As an example, Cohesity offers built-in MapReduce, allowing analytics to run natively. The time, effort, and infrastructure needed to move data to dedicated analytics cluster isn’t required. Cohesity also support copy data management, letting DevOps teams use snapshots to support application development and testing. The same snapshots are also easily accessible for data recovery.
dcVAST provides services to help companies get the most out of their data. Through smart secondary storage solutions like Cohesity, your data doesn’t stop providing value when you move it to a backup platform. Contact us to learn how you can use hyperconverged secondary storage devices like Cohesity to gain even more benefit from the business data you generate.
