Disaster Recovery Journal Winter 2022

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truly needs to be stored and protected, and what data does not? Fortunately, there are now solutions which can give you visibility across all the locations where you have data, whether on-prem, in the cloud, or in other backup locations. Unified data management elimi nates data gaps and silos because you can view all your data from a single console or control panel. Final takeaway The volume of data at the average organization is now doubling annually. As the volume of data grows, so do the challenges of managing and using it to the best advantage. Unified data management helps companies solve those challenges. By next year, according to IDC, half of all organizations will implement a plan to unify data storage, access, and gover nance. Those that do this will achieve a consistent data experience, optimize the value of their data, and gain a competitive edge. v

2. Embrace automation In IDC’s Future Enterprise Resilience Survey, organizations identified data protection as their No. 1 area for greater automation. This is a big plus because it automatically consolidates disparate data sources to create a single data source. Because it automatically cleanses data, it saves the time of data scientists and other talented people. Unified data management applies rules to data automatically and eliminates instances of non-compliance. It is essen tial because non-compliance now brings hefty fines, while compliance indicates best business practices and enhances trust among customers and vendors. Better still, automatically linking poli cies and business rules centralize man agement and improve data quality while improving data protection. 3. Focus on visibility One of the biggest challenges to unified data management is the explosive growth rate of data. There is always the chance of losing track of how many copies of data you have and where you have them. Another challenge is storage. What data

minimize gaps and increase data resil ience. Consolidating with one vendor can also help reduce complexity and cost. It is also vital because many companies today may have systems running and don’t fully know how to manage them. Part of the problem is a dire shortage of IT talent to manage all the disparate systems. Companies are struggling to find people with the knowledge, experi ence, and skills to manage many various point solutions. When you consolidate on one vendor, you can reduce the personnel resources required to support disparate solutions and devote those resources to more strategic initiatives. What is unified data management? It’s a way of bringing together disparate data sources to establish a unified data narrative. When your data remains in silos, you don’t have the clear, overall data picture you need to run your business best. There might be a valuable piece of data stored in some silo somewhere that your leaders don’t see and, therefore, can’t use.

Ahsan Siddiqui is director of product man agement at Arcserve. He’s been in the industry for 17 years, working with partners and customers.

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DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | WINTER 2022 39