StorageMAP – True Unstructured Data Management in a Multi-vendor, Multi-cloud World

By now it is common knowledge that unstructured data is growing out of control. So the question everyone is asking is, how do you truly manage unstructured data in the multi-vendor, multi-cloud environments that are becoming the norm?

There is no shortage of companies, from one end of the storage industry to the other, claiming to clean up the toxic landfill that has become unstructured data. But how, as an overworked under-budgeted IT professional, do you quickly understand the benefits of each approach?

We can separate “data management” offerings into 4 major categories each with its own pros and cons along the value chain:

Storage and Cloud Vendors

Storage and cloud vendors are excellent at storage, whether on-premises or in the cloud. They can handle any amount of data, they provide basic data protection and an array of other storage-based features. We all know who they are and typically have more than one in our data storage environment.

What they don’t do well is manage data across complex multi-vendor and multi-cloud environments. Some will claim they do, but their solutions all start with putting your data on their storage which entirely defeats the purpose of a hybrid environment. Their software-based data management offerings tend to be an under-funded after-thought. They are certainly not core to their business and their limitations make that clear.

Backup Vendors

These solutions are excellent at protecting data and managing a large number of point-in-time copies that can either be recalled to the originating platforms or presented directly from the backup appliance for near-instantaneous recovery.

While they offer robust capabilities with structured data relating to applications to which they have software integration, they are less capable of handling the unique challenges posed by unstructured data. And again, most of them start with the premise that you need to put your data on their platform to start the data management process. And worse still, the biggest issue with back up solutions to manage data is they all start with just that: the backup. In other words, a point-in-time copy of the data not the actual, constantly changing, data itself.

Data-Value Applications

Skipping to the end of the value chain, data-value applications are the best at getting value out of the data that benefits the business. Whether it be to help with business intelligence, research, conforming to regulations, or any number of other uses of the data, business applications rule supreme.

But business applications are not built for the scale of today’s unstructured storage environments. They are not able to sort out the right data to do their stuff on multi-petabyte, billion+ file environments. They need help to first identify the right data.

Vendor-Neutral Data Management Software

That brings us back to the only true solution for multi-vendor multi-cloud environments. Vendor-neutral data management Software is free from the constraints of storage and cloud vendors, backup vendors, and business value applications.

These software solutions work across any storage or cloud environment, work directly on the dynamic production data (not a copy), and can manage enterprise scale. 

And they do not lock up your data in yet another third-party solution (well, at least the good ones don’t). Your data remains accessible and available to any application and to move it as and when you please without the need for the data management software.

StorageMAP

The Datadobi team has been down in the trenches listening to the concerns enterprises have when it comes to managing unstructured data. As a result, we have launched StorageMAP — a vendor-neutral unstructured data management platform to address the most important issues IT leaders are struggling with.

We found that cost control, reducing carbon footprint, risk reduction, and deriving greater value from data were IT leaders’ top four goals. Here’s a breakdown of how StorageMAP addresses each: 

• Cost Control – StorageMap helps enterprises save money by facilitating intelligent cloud adoption, transferring data to less expensive on-premises storage, expediting the decommissioning of wasteful storage, and removing Redundant, Obsolete, and Trivial (ROT) data.
• Conformance to ESG Policies –  StorageMAP helps enterprises meet CO2 reduction targets. End users have the ability to visualize which of their storage is taking up the most energy, powered by renewables versus other sources, and move data to more cost-effective storage options or delete any ROT data.   
• Risk Reduction – StorageMAP improves the security of unstructured data by allowing IT leaders to see what data they have, why they have it, where it is, and who owns it. Companies can then use StorageMAP to take action by backing up only their useful unstructured data and by eliminating ROT, disowned, and harmful data.
• Deriving Greater Value from Data – StorageMAP enables organizations to move their data to the right place, at the right time, all the time so that data-value applications can make the best use of it.

StorageMAP is offered on a “pay-as-you-grow” basis, allowing users to gain a better understanding of their unstructured data environment before committing to any business-related actions. Once teams have visibility, they can categorize the data according to a variety of factors, including data ownership, role, location, risk profile, and type of action to do with the data.

To learn more about how StorageMAP can help you overcome your top unstructured data management challenges, click here.