Centralizing Storage
Centralizing storage sounds like a job for Captain Kirk, not for a CEO steering a much smaller enterprise. Yet putting all your company's data into one location is an easy process that can positively affect your bottom line.
Decentralization is an inevitable by-product of growth. First, there is just the CEO's desktop; then the first few sales representatives are added, followed by a marketing professional and an accountant. Each person gets a computer and each starts building a silo of critical company data. This structure results in the occasional annoyance of having to email files to one another — which can create a version control problem. And when someone is sick, access to certain information is restricted until that person gives up the password or comes back to work.
Security and backups are also a growing concern, but the team takes some comfort that if one computer fails, the rest of the data is safe, or if a hacker breaks into one PC, he can't see the information in the others. Of course, this security comes with a wink and a nod: when that lone unit fails, the data will likely be gone forever.
The decision to centralize often comes when the frustration boils over: a critical file is needed, but can't be accessed; an employee quits and the customer list leaves with him; or a hard drive dies and the data is mourned rather than resurrected. Whatever the situation, it's a turning point that spurs the purchase of a server or a call to the local IT vendor to start pressing the existing server's most powerful buttons.
Growing companies approach storage the same way their printers do to toners: they use fantastic amounts and always ask for more. As the emails and PowerPoint files pile up, these seemingly huge 50GB hard drives start to look tiny. Centralization won't limit the amount of information your company produces, but it can store what you make more efficiently and at a lower cost.
Let's say you email a 10MB PowerPoint file to five employees. Two respond with edits. With no centralization, the total memory cost of that process would be 80MB (your original version, five copies sent to teammates, plus two new ones). With centralization (and a process called Single-Instance Storage) the server's software recognizes that six of the files are identical and will delete all but one. The total cost: 30MB. Repeat this process with thousands of files over several years and the costs savings become very clear.
When you do have to purchase more memory, having a central location makes it easier to install in your network. Instead of adding external hard drives to each individual PC, you simply add a box that holds several hard drives to your server. Some of these boxes hold up to 15 drives and you only need to purchase them one at a time as your needs grow.
When it comes to security benefits, storage centralization is a double-edged sword. It's true that putting all your eggs in one basket (or all your data in one box) can increase security risks. But consider this: Are you ready, willing and able to protect each basket holding your company's data? If your company has five PCs, that means installing and maintaining five separate firewalls, anti-virus programs, intrusion detection tools and five sets of backup files. Centralization means installing and maintaining just one set of these programs. Faced with this choice, most businesses decide that they can achieve a higher level of overall security with one set of high, strong walls rather than five sets of semihigh, sometimes strong walls around five baskets.
Internal security levels can also be established and managed easier. From the server, certain kinds of data or specific files can be blocked for specific employees. Access logs can be read to see who has been reading or changing what files, should the need for a review come up. Finally, if employees leave the company, centralization means their data stays with the team.
Centralization can also build your topline by helping employee's access data faster. Many servers use a technology called RAID (redundant array of independent disks) to speed up their systems and provide a backup in case of hard drive failure. This is a combination of hardware and software that saves two or more copies of all the company's files across multiple hard drives (drives A, B, C, D, E and so on) in a single server. Let's say that two employees are accessing the server at the same time. Employee 1 is trying to open a Word document, while employee 2 is trying to save an Excel file.
A hard drive can only read (open) or write (save) files one at a time; it can't perform both actions simultaneously. But with RAID, the server can open the file for employee 1 from drive A, while writing the file for employee 2 onto drive B. The result would be faster file access for everyone.
Speed can also be boosted with network attached storage (NAS), a fancy term for a server that's designed to do a certain task such as file sharing. The hardware and software of this server are tweaked to provide maximum speed for calling up files or sharing them with teammates. These devices keep pace with employees who run at top speed and reduce morale-busting frustrations with an otherwise sluggish IT infrastructure.
Hard drives are the hardest working parts of any computer or server. Constantly in use and comprising of many moving parts, they're prone to breaking down over the time. With the perspective that a failure is a matter of when, and not if, what can storage centralization do to make the problems easier to solve?
First, backing up one set of files from the server is a lot easier than doing it on for 3, 5, 10 or as many computers as the company is running. RAID can also come to the rescue. With multiple copies of the company's files saved over several hard drives, the failure of one of these drives means zero loss of data. Second, consolidating data on a server means you have more robust options for backing up and creating an off-site copy of your data, including removable disk, tape and even other hard drives that can be stored on a different device in another location.
There are a few drawbacks to storage centralization. The first is the upfront cost of the server, then the ongoing maintenance. But compared to the cost of managing the same data in many different locations, it can be worth the investment. You're inviting major problems if you put all your data in one basket and then fail to protect, properly manage, access to and back up that data.
The good news is that these risks almost never outweigh the rewards. The decision to centralize data is one that has been made by millions of companies and one that has undoubtedly led to faster, more secure enterprises.
Decentralization is an inevitable by-product of growth. First, there is just the CEO's desktop; then the first few sales representatives are added, followed by a marketing professional and an accountant. Each person gets a computer and each starts building a silo of critical company data. This structure results in the occasional annoyance of having to email files to one another — which can create a version control problem. And when someone is sick, access to certain information is restricted until that person gives up the password or comes back to work.
Security and backups are also a growing concern, but the team takes some comfort that if one computer fails, the rest of the data is safe, or if a hacker breaks into one PC, he can't see the information in the others. Of course, this security comes with a wink and a nod: when that lone unit fails, the data will likely be gone forever.
The decision to centralize often comes when the frustration boils over: a critical file is needed, but can't be accessed; an employee quits and the customer list leaves with him; or a hard drive dies and the data is mourned rather than resurrected. Whatever the situation, it's a turning point that spurs the purchase of a server or a call to the local IT vendor to start pressing the existing server's most powerful buttons.
Benefits of Storage Centralization
Cost Savings
Growing companies approach storage the same way their printers do to toners: they use fantastic amounts and always ask for more. As the emails and PowerPoint files pile up, these seemingly huge 50GB hard drives start to look tiny. Centralization won't limit the amount of information your company produces, but it can store what you make more efficiently and at a lower cost.
Let's say you email a 10MB PowerPoint file to five employees. Two respond with edits. With no centralization, the total memory cost of that process would be 80MB (your original version, five copies sent to teammates, plus two new ones). With centralization (and a process called Single-Instance Storage) the server's software recognizes that six of the files are identical and will delete all but one. The total cost: 30MB. Repeat this process with thousands of files over several years and the costs savings become very clear.
When you do have to purchase more memory, having a central location makes it easier to install in your network. Instead of adding external hard drives to each individual PC, you simply add a box that holds several hard drives to your server. Some of these boxes hold up to 15 drives and you only need to purchase them one at a time as your needs grow.
Security
When it comes to security benefits, storage centralization is a double-edged sword. It's true that putting all your eggs in one basket (or all your data in one box) can increase security risks. But consider this: Are you ready, willing and able to protect each basket holding your company's data? If your company has five PCs, that means installing and maintaining five separate firewalls, anti-virus programs, intrusion detection tools and five sets of backup files. Centralization means installing and maintaining just one set of these programs. Faced with this choice, most businesses decide that they can achieve a higher level of overall security with one set of high, strong walls rather than five sets of semihigh, sometimes strong walls around five baskets.
Internal security levels can also be established and managed easier. From the server, certain kinds of data or specific files can be blocked for specific employees. Access logs can be read to see who has been reading or changing what files, should the need for a review come up. Finally, if employees leave the company, centralization means their data stays with the team.
Speed
Centralization can also build your topline by helping employee's access data faster. Many servers use a technology called RAID (redundant array of independent disks) to speed up their systems and provide a backup in case of hard drive failure. This is a combination of hardware and software that saves two or more copies of all the company's files across multiple hard drives (drives A, B, C, D, E and so on) in a single server. Let's say that two employees are accessing the server at the same time. Employee 1 is trying to open a Word document, while employee 2 is trying to save an Excel file.
A hard drive can only read (open) or write (save) files one at a time; it can't perform both actions simultaneously. But with RAID, the server can open the file for employee 1 from drive A, while writing the file for employee 2 onto drive B. The result would be faster file access for everyone.
Speed can also be boosted with network attached storage (NAS), a fancy term for a server that's designed to do a certain task such as file sharing. The hardware and software of this server are tweaked to provide maximum speed for calling up files or sharing them with teammates. These devices keep pace with employees who run at top speed and reduce morale-busting frustrations with an otherwise sluggish IT infrastructure.
Disaster Recovery
Hard drives are the hardest working parts of any computer or server. Constantly in use and comprising of many moving parts, they're prone to breaking down over the time. With the perspective that a failure is a matter of when, and not if, what can storage centralization do to make the problems easier to solve?
First, backing up one set of files from the server is a lot easier than doing it on for 3, 5, 10 or as many computers as the company is running. RAID can also come to the rescue. With multiple copies of the company's files saved over several hard drives, the failure of one of these drives means zero loss of data. Second, consolidating data on a server means you have more robust options for backing up and creating an off-site copy of your data, including removable disk, tape and even other hard drives that can be stored on a different device in another location.
There are a few drawbacks to storage centralization. The first is the upfront cost of the server, then the ongoing maintenance. But compared to the cost of managing the same data in many different locations, it can be worth the investment. You're inviting major problems if you put all your data in one basket and then fail to protect, properly manage, access to and back up that data.
The good news is that these risks almost never outweigh the rewards. The decision to centralize data is one that has been made by millions of companies and one that has undoubtedly led to faster, more secure enterprises.
