By Kate Mollett, Country Manager South Africa at Commvault
Organisations today are faced with a highly challenging data environment. Data is growing at a rapid and unprecedented rate, housed in complex multi-cloud and hybrid environments, more business critical than ever before. It needs to be protected, not only to safeguard intellectual property, but also to comply with an increasingly stringent regulatory environment. Cost optimisation is essential because budgets are tight, but at the same time, ransomware attacks are increasing in frequency and sophistication, and the cost to rectify an attack can run into the millions and potentially sink a business. Organisations need a sophisticated, integrated and cost-effective data management platform to enable data analytics, support innovation and above all ensure that critical data is both safe and available.
Solutions for an evolving digital world
As digital transformation becomes further entrenched in everyday business and in the technology we leverage, data has become currency. As a result, it is also a lucrative and attractive target for cybercriminals. Many businesses report being hit by ransomware, not once, but on multiple occasions. Alongside this challenge, the cloud has become an intrinsic part of a business’s ability to be agile, innovative and competitive in this digital world, leading to growing complexities around data environments.
It has never been more important to strengthen security posture, but at the same time, data platforms must integrate seamlessly with major hyperscalers to support the growing multi-cloud environment. This seamless integration is the key, because a solution that is bolted on after the fact can negatively impact both efficiency and effectiveness, not to mention adding cost and complexity around managing multiple systems. Deep integration ensures greater synergy between data management and multi-cloud, making it easier and more cost efficient, and allowing businesses to leverage the native capabilities of their hyperscaler cloud platforms to ensure more effective data protection.
Security and protection go hand in hand
Data security is an integral and inseparable component of data protection, which makes a multi-layered approach to ransomware detection, protection and recovery critical. All data and content, including backups, needs to be inspected for malware to remove threats and allow for clean recovery to minimise the threat of reinfection.
With the growing importance of data, it has also become essential to integrate data security and data protection into the broader security ecosystem for increased insight and responsiveness. The evolving nature of cyber threats makes a proactive approach essential, and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems must be connected to easily feed alerts, events, and audit data to other platforms. This gives security teams greater visibility into anomalies and threats, improving responsiveness and mitigating risk.
Balancing cost with effectiveness
Ongoing global economic instability means that across industries, businesses need to improve cost efficiency and optimise budgets. Data can easily become a major cost centre for businesses, and yet there needs to be increased spend around security, especially for mission-critical areas. Intelligent technologies can help businesses reduce the time it takes to protect applications by improving efficiency of backups and scans, which is a quick and easy way of reducing costs.
However, these technologies need to form part of a holistic, integrated data management platform to yield maximum cost and complexity reduction while ensuring that data remains secure and compliant. The key is to leverage integrated and intelligent data services that incorporate data protection, security, governance and compliance, transformation and insight, in a single, holistic solution. This will aid businesses in handling the complexities of the multi-cloud while enhancing data security and increasing cost savings.