ANTenna Blog -- Storage

When you think of storage, you probably think of the need to save everything forever. Think again. The right way to think about storage is to figure out what's really worth saving, and what your company can afford to lose.

At least, that's the message from a new McLean Report Research Note from Info-Tech: "Assessing tolerance for loss is critical to understanding the business value of data." The research house "recommends that all investigation of backup solutions be preceded by a careful assessment of the business value of what is being backed up, as well as the establishment of Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO)."

Even though disk space is cheap, storage can be expensive. It may seem easier to just automatically save everything and sort it all out later (usually, never). But ensuring the security, recoverability, availability of data carries significant software and labor costs. So Info-Tech recommends asking two key questions:

1. What would be the cost of losing this data permanently?
2. If we temporarily lose access to this data, how long can we tolerate its absence?

Both technology and business decision-makers need to be involved in figuring out how your company can win by being a good loser.