Big Data management for SMBs and SMEs

Customised backup and archiving solutions for managing growing data volumes

Data growth also exacerbates more fundamental challenges:

• Legally compliant archiving
• Long-term storage of important business data

Companies of any size must comply with legal requirements for data storage. Documents, for example, must be stored during the prescribed retention periods in such a way that they can neither be changed nor deleted.

These files are considered ‘cold data’ because a lot of them are not needed for day-to-day business operations and they don’t require quick and permanent access either. Managing all the different data buckets is as important as protecting them and has a huge impact on your storage cost. Therefore, cold data should not consume costly space on primary storage systems but migrated to dedicated archive storage. Data sitting on archive storage must be protected from deletion and modification by appropriate mechanisms and for appropriately defined periods of time. If you’re doing it right you’ll be in a win-win situation:

• Space is freed up on fast but more expensive primary storage systems
• Storage volume for backing up active data is reduced
• Recovery time is also reduced and strict adherence of backup schedules can be implemented more easily and efficiently

Professional solutions for data volumes in the TB range

Another challenge for all businesses is to optimise infrastructure in a way to meet current conditions as well as future data growth. A difficult task for smaller companies in particular because conventional storage solutions are still tailored to the requirements of large corporations. SME/SMB data volumes are simply too small to either reach the minimum capacities of conventional solutions or pay for too many enterprise features they don’t need.

However, it’s neither sensible nor affordable for companies to invest in an oversized solution without a concrete goal, in order to fill the capacities someday in the future. Storage solutions must be tailored to current and future requirements; above all, they must be able to scale with data volumes. Additionally, they have to meet professional standards while also uncompromisingly providing the necessary security for the data, its reliable retention, and legally compliant archiving.

Yowie Appliances powered by Cloudian Hyperstore were designed to exactly meet these requirements starting from a capacity of 32 TB. The plug-and-play solutions have been tailored to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises and are up and running in less than 30 minutes. All Yowie models are fully S3-compatible, offer the best values in performance and availability, and meet professional requirements. As data volumes increase, additional appliances can be added quickly and easily. With this scalability, users retain full flexibility and cost control.

Compliant archiving and protection against ransomware

This turnkey solution is tailored and gives all companies with smaller data volumes in the TB range access to an optimized and scalable infrastructure that meets professional standards. With Object Lock and 3+2 Erasure Coding, the Yowie Appliances offer powerful defensive functions for data protection, ransomware protection, and legally compliant archiving at no additional cost.

The combination with the tiering and archiving solution PoINT Storage Manager allows seamless integration of the Yowie Appliances as archive storage. Thus, even SMEs with data volumes in the double-digit TB range can access a professional solution for data storage management, which implements archiving and compliance requirements flexibly and cost-efficiently.

What does storage tiering mean?

Storage tiering describes a method of data and storage management, where data within a multi-level or multi-tier storage architecture is stored on the storage tier corresponding to its usage.

That’s exactly what the software solution PoINT Storage Manager does: Based on predefined policies it checks the files on primary storage systems. If files meet certain criteria – such as certain age or modification date – the software automatically moves them to the archive tier.

In the archive tier PoINT Storage Manager then ensures legally compliant archiving of the files by means of various functions.

• WORM protection
  WORM is an abbreviation for “Write once, read many”, which means: If a file is stored with WORM protection, it can still be read. However, changes are no longer possible. With the WORM function, the software ensures that files are stored in a way that cannot be changed – an important aspect of legally compliant archiving
• Retention Management
  For compliance with retention periods, PoINT Storage Manager uses the so-called retention management. This functionality ensures that data can neither be changed nor deleted during the specified time
• Encryption
  PoINT Storage Manager offers encryption and authentication functions to protect archived files against unauthorized access
• Seamless access
  In case of an audit or even a lawsuit, companies need to be able to present the archived data quickly and legibly. Therefore, PoINT Storage Manager stores the files in standard formats. Users can access the archive files quite transparently via their familiar user interface

But not only compliance is facilitated by PoINT Storage Manager: Especially the WORM functionality and encryption features also increase the protection against data loss by ransomware.

The solution for SMBs and SMEs: PoINT Storage Manager & Yowie Appliances

Data must be stored reliably – and these standards apply to companies of any size. PoINT Storage Manager and Yowie Appliances offer the perfect storage combination for startups as well as SMEs starting from only 32TB.

PoINT Storage Manager seamlessly integrates Yowie Appliances as archive storage and uses them as target storage for automated, policy-based data tiering. Thus, the software makes a decisive contribution to the more efficient use of the storage systems. At the same time, it provides significant cost and time savings for backups. The combined security features of PoINT Storage Manager and Yowie Appliances do not only support users in implementing legally compliant archiving. They also secure data against cyber-attacks and unauthorised access.

With the available capacities of the Yowie appliance family, a tailor-made solution can be deployed even for smaller data volumes and then adapted to individual growth at any time by simply adding further appliances.

We would like to thank Dr. Catrin Kersten from PoINT Software & Systems GmbH for this guest article.