IaaS and Data Protection

Businesses constantly have to tackle issues related to unprecedented data growth. IT teams across such enterprises end up struggling with the availability and security of such data, even with tight IT budgets. Because of the tremendous unreliability and the enormous processes involved in traditional tape-based backup, IT teams have been forced to rely on time-consuming, manual and error-prone processes to protect their data. With growing demands on most IT businesses, the pressure to meet all the challenges of scalability, data protection and management has been felt by all IT heads. Businesses are looking at solutions that are basically economical approaches to deal with such resource crunches and data protection issues. The idea is to reduce IT administration costs as well as decrease the complexity of data protection procedures.

With the availability of new cloud computing services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), IT firms can expect the best data protection services. In fact, research firm Gartner has predicted a robust growth for the IaaS market. From $3.7 billion this year, the numbers will see a steady rise to around $10.5 billion by 2014. Cost savings will be the key attraction to employ IaaS across IT firms. Typically, the IaaS service vendor owns the equipment and is responsible for its maintenance. Cloud computing providers offer a variety of services from desktop virtualization services to network and computation and even data protection services. Generally offered on a “pay-as-you-go” basis, companies can take advantage from these services since they may offer economical solutions. IaaS services offer the best infrastructure, greater market opportunities and better economical efficiencies.

The IaaS infrastructure can provide storage and protection services since it is deployed in the cloud. IT firms can also therefore respond to growing operational demands quickly with virtual machines. The cloud also allows firms to put in place a governance framework wherein they can put in place controls to disallow unauthorized access. But IT firms should also seek only Infrastructure as a Service vendors that offer ways to streamline the process of deployment and management of unified yet flexible infrastructure that offers maximum data protection.

Like with any new technology, IaaS also faces risks as it provides new opportunities and economical technology. So while it may meet certain requirements, it certainly may require IT firms to pursue such solutions with some amount of caution, especially when it concerns moving sensitive data and applications to an emerging IaaS system.

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