Data Backup Digest

Data security is always a pertinent issue. The value of data to the majority of enterprises cannot be understated. It’s often the lifeblood of a company, thus it’s important to keep it protected. The world of data continues to change as new applications are being developed – the concept of storing consumer data within the cloud is a relatively new one, possible in part due to economies of scale.

Within a business, it’s vital that you stay on top of the security trends when it comes to data. As data and the applications that support it evolve, the security industry evolves too. Gartner reported that a large number of businesses are now moving resources away from operational security technologies, like administration and monitoring, and focussing on mitigation and incident response.

As such, it’s predicted that by 2018 more than half of businesses will use security firms that focus on data protection, security risk management and security infrastructure management, all to improve their security postures.

For storage, security and the cloud there are a lot of trends that you should pay attention to, but let’s take a look at some of the most important ones.

First, the cloud is vulnerable. Unless you’ve created a private cloud then you don’t have full control over your data. Even if a provider offers end-to-end encryption, that’s still not a certainty of safety. In fact, a SSL certification expiration caused major downtime to Microsoft Azure. Be sure to know where your data is stored, how it gets transferred and who has access to any encryption keys. Use multi-node storage arrays to keep your data more secure and resilient.

Second, don’t be afraid to employ software-define systems to help with security. Providers like VMware and Atlantis are now supporting HA, encryption, replication, deduplication and cloud API extensions. With data being abstracted into a logical control layer, you get greater visibility and control and the ability to integrate DLP technologies.

Third, remember that data is always physically stored somewhere. You might have the tightest security when it comes to data encryption, but you don’t want someone to be able to actually remove the device your data is stored in. Although they might not be able to access the data, they can destroy it. It’s happened before, so don’t let it happen to you. Keep your storage environments locked down and ensure your providers do the same.

Fourth, make sure that you are always testing your existing systems. It’s no good to implement something and then think the job is done. You always need to be looking for problems, reviewing policies and the architecture, and stress testing the infrastructure. Protocols, APIs and cloud elements often change, so your storage needs to adapt with it.

As you look to develop your next storage solution, always have security at the top of your mind. Always consider how you are going to integrate security with your solution and not as an afterthought. The amount of storage that needs to kept is only increasing, so the sooner you can develop a strong security system the better.