StorageMAP 7.0 Is A Game-Changer for Hybrid Cloud Data Services

On June 18, 2024, Datadobi announced the launch of StorageMAP 7.0 – a game-changer for hybrid cloud data services, with previously unheard-of features and functionality to provide the deepest insights possible into heterogeneous unstructured data environments. Now, not only can customers make the most intelligent data-driven decisions that drive innovation and competitive advantage with StorageMAP 7.0, they can also manage their unstructured data’s inherent risk and escalating cost as never before.

StorageMAP 7.0 features groundbreaking enhancements around data insight and mobility, which address the cost and complexity of managing unstructured data due to its exponential growth, sprawl, and diverse and disorganized nature… spanning across multiple aspects — including its content, formats, origins, storage locations, and the people who use, own, and manage it. The importance and application of unstructured data can also differ greatly – i.e., certain data may be subject to regulatory or company-specific guidelines, while other data might have minimal worth, and some could potentially be illegal.

Data Insight Enhancements

Understanding the essence of unstructured data and arranging it in a way that’s meaningful to everyone involved forms the basis of effective data management. Empowered with this understanding and organization all parties are equipped with the necessary information to make informed decisions, develop appropriate policies, carry out actions that put these policies into practice, and assess how well these policies work in achieving the desired outcomes for all involved.

For example:

• IT may require knowledge of data location, associated costs, and its significance, so that they can manage, protect, and move the data appropriately.
• Marketing may wish to pinpoint potential data for generative AI, transferring it to a data lake for training, refining, or enhancing AI models.
• Compliance and Legal may seek to minimize risks by properly storing, protecting, and/or eliminating particular data.

Balancing these different objectives becomes challenging in large-scale environments that use multiple vendors’ solutions for both cloud and on-premises storage for vast amounts of unstructured data, often containing billions of files. StorageMAP 7.0, to help with this, introduces two new enhancements designed to assist companies in making important choices about their unstructured data: Custom Dashboards and an Analysis Module.

Custom Dashboards – provide a clean slate to arrange exactly the data views and metrics that matter to different stakeholders. Instead of one massive dashboard reporting on all aspects of the environment, you can have focused views on aging, geography, business unit, on-prem vs cloud, or any KPI. The dashboards can be easily exported for reporting to management or data owners.

Analysis Module – enables the user to examine and understand patterns in an organization’s unstructured data, and can be tailored to fit specific user requirements. By applying multiple levels of filters and classifications to identify datasets, analyses can be created that match areas of interest — which can then be visualized through charts, tables, and other report formats. Insight can be gained, incorporated into Custom Dashboards, and then used to guide actions like moving, copying, or processing data, all of which can be performed by the StorageMAP platform.

Data Mobility Enhancement

StorageMAP 7.0 has expanded its capabilities to include migrating WORM (Write Once Read Many) data from IBM COS and Hitachi HCP Object systems to any S3-compatible storage that supports the S3 Object Lock feature. Combined with support for other Object and NAS platforms provides customers with a reliable, efficient, and high-performing method by which to move their object-based WORM data. Importantly, this process maintains the legal hold status and retention dates of the data during migration.

Supporting these two systems specifically was critical because these storage vendors implemented their own proprietary WORM API protocols prior to AWS implementing WORM functionality in the S3 API.

IDC Analyst Highlights StorageMAP’s Role in Addressing Unstructured Data Challenges

“We are regularly hearing from clients that unstructured data is a double-edged sword – they recognize that it represents a potential wealth of information and a source of value creation within their organizations, but also that the massive capacity growth, a lack of enterprise-wide visibility, and difficulty breaking down silos of file and object data is a major management problem in a cost- and resource-constrained time,” said Dave Pearson, Infrastructure Research Vice President at IDC. “Achieving Service Level Agreements in areas such as data resilience, resource optimization, data portability, and operational excellence, etc. is high on IT leaders’ priority list. StorageMAP’s new capabilities to better meet business requirements, decrease vulnerabilities, and control costs may offer welcome relief for these challenges.”

The Bottom Line

For years, the most astute IT and business leaders have recognized unstructured data as their hidden advantage – a key differentiator overlooked by competitors who simply didn’t know what they were missing. Today of course, the immense value of unstructured data is becoming widely acknowledged, not to mention, the significant costs and risks of mismanagement. The real question now isn’t whether unstructured data is valuable (because we know it is)… but rather how to effectively harness its potential. That’s where Datadobi comes in! We’re not just a solution – we’re the key to unlocking the full power of your unstructured data… turning what was once an enigma into your most valuable asset.