How to Manage Data Overload in a Secure and Sustainable Way

 Data is the lifeblood of any modern business, but managing it can be a daunting task. According to a new survey from Hitachi Vantara, the modern infrastructure, data management and digital solutions subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., nearly 74% of Indian companies are overwhelmed by the amount of data they manage and 75% are concerned their current infrastructure will be unable to adapt to meet their organization’s data needs.

The survey, which interviewed 1,288 C-level executives and IT decision makers, including 82 in India, also revealed that most companies expect their data needs to nearly double in the next two years, and that both protecting and managing the rapid growth of data in an actionable and sustainable way are further complicating efforts.

Data Security and Resilience Challenges

The survey found that leaders say that data is their most valuable asset but are concerned about the security and resilience of their data infrastructure. Some of the key findings include:

• 68% of leaders are concerned they cannot detect a data breach in time to protect data.
• 75% of leaders are concerned over whether their organization’s data infrastructure is resilient enough to recover data from ransomware attacks.
• 21% of respondents admitted that important data was not backed up and 27% had experienced data inaccessibility due to storage outages.

These findings highlight the need for organizations to invest in modern data infrastructure that can provide reliable backup, recovery and disaster recovery solutions, as well as advanced security features such as encryption, access control and anomaly detection.

Data Sustainability Challenges

The survey also revealed that many organizations are struggling to manage their data in a sustainable way, both in terms of environmental impact and cost efficiency. Some of the key findings include:

• 76% of IT leaders currently measure their data center’s energy consumption; however, 28% acknowledged that their data infrastructure uses too much energy and 43% admitted their sustainability policies don’t address the impact of storing unused data.
• While 79% of the organisations stated that they stored every piece of data, on an average, 42% of it remains as ‘dark data’ or unused. This clearly highlights the lack of establishment of strategy and data infrastructure tools to leverage data with maximum efficiency.
• To stay ahead of the market, it is essential for businesses to proactively adopt infrastructure modernization techniques that offer greater agility, speed, reliability, embedded AI/ML and protection of data, while requiring significantly less space and energy.

These findings suggest that organizations need to adopt a more holistic approach to data management, which includes not only storing but also analyzing, optimizing and deleting data as needed. This can help reduce energy consumption, carbon footprint and storage costs, as well as unlock new insights and value from data.

A Hybrid Cloud World

The survey also shed light on the future of data storage, with the hybrid cloud model leveraging a mix of public/private cloud, co-location and on-premises expected to persist. For India business leaders, the survey found data stored in an already established hybrid cloud with percentages of data center workloads located almost evenly between the public cloud (26%), private cloud (25%), on-premises (26%), and co-located/managed services (20%). Notably, public and private cloud are both expected to rise slightly to 28% in the coming two years with on-premises dropping to 22%.

The hybrid cloud model offers many benefits for organizations, such as flexibility, scalability, cost savings and innovation. However, it also poses some challenges, such as complexity, interoperability, security and governance. Therefore, organizations need to carefully plan and execute their hybrid cloud strategy, which includes choosing the right platforms, tools and partners to manage their data across different environments.

Conclusion

Data is a powerful asset for any organization, but it also comes with many challenges. The Hitachi Vantara Modern Data Infrastructure Dynamics Report shows that Indian companies are overwhelmed by data as security, sustainability and scalability challenges grow. To overcome these challenges, organizations need to invest in modern data infrastructure that can provide secure, sustainable and scalable solutions for their current and future data needs.

If you want to learn more about how Hitachi Vantara can help you transform your data infrastructure for the digital era, visit https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-in/home.html