Offsite storage helps tackle data overload

Dubai: Businesses drowning beneath a tidal wave of electronic data have very real options to return sanity to the workplace, says an industry analyst.

Mark Walker, Director of the Vertical Industry Practice for Middle East, International Data Corporation (IDC), says to get back on solid ground, businesses can securely retain offsite data management storage solutions while keeping some of the more confidential company data safe on existing internal servers.

"Data is just coming at them [businesses] and they don't know what to do," Walker told Gulf News. "This is certainly not going to get better."

Without a little help from a few friends, that is.

The biggest challenge for Middle East businesses, he said, is a lack of awareness regarding which approach is best to organise vast volumes of internal daily reports, memos and emails that are stacking up faster than companies can secure them. Research from IDC suggests that worldwide enterprise storage revenues topped $19.2 billion (Dh70.6 billion) in 2009 while in the Middle East the industry recorded earnings of around $671 million.

Recent survey

With exception of banks and the oil and gas industry in the region, businesses are not doing well in face of the age of the information overload, he said, adding that he extracted some of his observations from a recent survey of chief information officers (CIO) in the Middle East.

"IDC predicts growth in storage will grow by five times in the next five years," Walker, whose latest whitepaper advocates a "less-is-more" data management approach that is simple yet drastically cuts complexity.

Walker's whitepaper was commissioned by Commvault, a company that helps "enterprises manage data growth, cut costs, and reduce risk by simplifying data management functions through a single platform and architecture".

Fiona Moon, Commvault Marketing Director, said her firm is looking to open the conversation with struggling corporations to help them understand that data management can be done securely even when cloud computing offsite solutions are chosen.