Data is a critical component of a multitude of decision making processes—for everything from budgeting to personnel management to supply allocation. Consequently, how organizations transmit, house, organize, and defend their data is often mission-critical.
Commissioned by Brocade and conducted by Market Connections, a recent IP storage survey polled 200 IT decision-makers across 57 federal agencies and included network managers, data center managers, storage engineers or architects, program/project managers, and directors or managers.
The report revealed that when it comes to data security, some of the most widely felt concerns include data security, data loss and insufficient budget.
Shared Internet Protocol (IP) Storage Networks, which are used to transmit data from one computer to another using a shared Internet connection, have proven helpful to organizations looking for a lower cost alternative to store various types of data. This breaks from the conventional usage of storage area network (SAN) storage, which is a specifically designated storage space for mission-critical information and IP storage for less critical data. Due to this adjustment, there is increased burden for organizations.
According to the report, when organizations use shared access, instead of specifically dedicated IP storage solutions, they are most concerned with creating a secure environment (48 percent), data loss (34 percent), and loss in application response time (30 percent).
Additional findings revealed that some agencies noted that their only method of storage is IP based, yet most of these responders expect this method of storage usage to grow by 10 percent. The report said this growth is likely attributed to increasing server virtualization, unstructured data and converged system deployments.
Utilizing an IP based storage method has sound benefits, including an increase in security, a reduction in cost, and an increase to application implementation.
“Using shared storage networks for mission- and business-critical workloads compromises agency effectiveness,” shared Anthony Robbins, Vice President of Federal, for Brocade. “Fibre Channel is the most trusted and widely deployed storage network infrastructure for mission-critical workloads.But for business-critical workloads, dedicated IP storage networks are essential to ensuring security, mitigating data loss and delivering better application performance.”
Despite the benefits, many obstacles stand in the way of agency deployment of an IP storage network. These include lack of funding, misunderstandings by management, lack of people able to deploy, or lack of the IP storage utility to function as needed.
Having a system of fully integrated IP storage networks enables agencies to limit the risk of failure due to human error, while establishing increased performance, and a reliable and secure environment, to adequately support a robust and priority driven workload.
