Alyssa Blackburn, Director, Information Management, AvePoint, says cloud storage solutions don’t have to be beyond budget constraints with smart, technology-enabled information management strategies.
Gartner forecasted Australian cloud spending to reach $23.2 billion in 2023, jumping by 19.3 per cent from 2022. As a result, 94% of global IT leaders say their cloud storage costs are rising, according to a Virtana study.
The spike in costs is putting pressure on IT teams. With cloud no longer being a ‘nice to have’, 82% of IT professionals and executives said that managing cloud spend was their biggest challenge, according to Flexera’s 2023 State of the Cloud report.
It’s clear we can’t bury our heads in the sand and hope cloud costs will go down. As businesses are bearing the brunt of the economic downturn, there’s going to be
demands for cost-cutting. Whilst cloud storage is an unavoidable cost, with smart, technology-enabled information management strategies, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming or beyond budget constraints.
There are ways organisations can reduce their spending whilst increasing productivity and mitigating risks.
According to IDC’s Datasphere and StorageSphere forecast, globally we reached 6.7ZB of storage in 2020 and by 2025, we’ll reach more than 200ZB of storage. A trap that many organisations fall into is assuming that cloud storage is ‘cheap’.
For years, a mantra of ‘storage is cheap’ has been uttered by many, but the rapid move to cloud has changed the environment and storage management has become a significant priority.
This can all be resolved by implementing a robust information lifecycle program. However, there is an assumption that it costs far more to implement information management strategies than to simply keep paying for more storage.
The fact of the matter is that cloud storage is cheap until you hit limits and the reason that limits are hit is because of a lack of information lifecycle outcomes.
It’s important to remember that trying to save costs on information management could lead to far bigger costs in the long run. A prime example of this is when a major energy company settled a claim rather than going to court after realising that finding the documents required for discovery would cost $6.2 million and six months to complete.
It’s easy to think that moving certain data out of the active repository and into archival storage, which is cheaper, could be a solution.
But regardless of where you are storing this content, the key is lifecycle management. It doesn’t matter if it’s in an active or inactive repository it still needs to be managed. It’s like filling your house with junk and then buying storage unit after storage unit that you continue to fill up. The underlying problem still exists and that is, you have too much stuff and things that are no longer required can be destroyed.
Moving content to cheaper storage is an excellent short-term solution, but ultimately the problem still exists and will need to be dealt with eventually.
A report by IDC found workers spend about 2.5 hours per day, or roughly 30% of a workday, searching for information.
The point to make here is that employees have jobs to do and frustrations are high when they can’t easily lay their hands on the information they need to do those jobs.
Making it difficult to easily access information can lead to lost productivity and more concerningly decisions can be made based upon inaccurate or outdated data causing significant cost or customer impact.
Lastly, we need to learn our lessons from previous cybersecurity attacks. The less data you store, the less data there is to steal and the less likely you are going to be liable for the mismanagement of data in the event you do become a target.
Implementing a good information lifecycle and robust retention and disposal process can reduce costs and increase efficiencies by ensuring you’re not keeping data beyond its need or value.
The first step in an information management project should always be about strategic alignment.
For example, you may not be able to sell in an information management project on its own but could it slot into another Digital Transformation project in the business?
Secondly, you’ll need to consider your options. What are the outcomes of the project versus the consequences of doing nothing? Are there regulatory consequences for poor data management? How does implementing data management solutions affect long-term expenditure, productivity, and innovation?
The list goes on.
Ultimately costs need to be considered. How much will the project cost and how much will it save? It’s common to see the savings in storage costs funding the project in its entirety very quickly. This is a hugely important piece of the puzzle when selling projects to budget holders and needs to be clearly communicated from the outset.
In saying that, sometimes upfront costs and available resources will limit the project scope.
Then it comes back to prioritisation. If you could only choose one information management project to tackle, start with the simplification of retention and disposal schedules. It has the most impact and the most significant amount of flow-on effect. If you can simplify retention and disposal, you’ll have fewer rules to manage, implementation will be much easier, and you’ll have less impact on user experience.
As always, the final step is understanding the implementation process. You need to outline what’s required to get the project started, who needs to be involved and set out a timeline. Importantly, you’ll also need to implement success metrics with strong measurement criteria to really understand the impact effective information management will have on the organisation.
Investing in a strong information management solution will reduce the amount of wasted storage, whilst increasing productivity and protecting you against potential security, regulatory and compliance risks.
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