How important is data security in your IT concept? If you want to benefit from the potential of constantly growing data stocks, you need strong mechanisms to protect this valuable raw material. We show you what dangers exist – and how you can prevent them by replicating your data.
Data growth and data protection
In the course of digitization, data is becoming one of the most important resources of companies. That may sound like a worn-out commonplace. And yet, in most companies, data protection is not given the necessary priority. Data protection means to protect data effectively from modification and loss, and to ensure its availability.
The example of machine learning makes clear that the irretrievable loss of data is a loss of valuable time and experience. The more data available, the more profitable its evaluation and the more precise the derived model.
Protection against data loss
Unstructured data from analytics and IoT applications is usually stored on object stores or in the cloud. In most cases, this data is not additionally protected by a backup. But it is risky to do without such a backup, because even if cloud and object storage are considered highly available, there are still dangers to data protection.
Cyberattacks by malware can destroy large volumes of data. Likewise, unforeseen hardware failures, or even a minor inattention and an accidental deletion can lead to data loss. In our article “How secure is object storage?” we explain which scenarios may impend and how you can prevent damage.
One to one copies of data also play an important role. Replicating the data on an independent storage medium increases security. If the primary storage system fails, the data is available quickly and completely through the copy. The copy should be saved on a different storage medium and kept physically separate. This ensures a high level of data security, which outweighs the additional cost of another storage medium.
Software-supported data replication
Automated data replication is handled by suitable software. This software should be compatible with different operating systems and different types of data. It should also ensure reliable, vendor-independent replication to a wide range of storage media. Thus, an additional security layer can be seamlessly and cost-efficiently integrated into an existing storage infrastructure.
PoINT Data Replicator is a software product which replicates data to object storage systems via an S3 interface. The software replicates object data as well as files from file systems to S3 object storage systems. The file-to-S3 replication is executed without loss of information by using the file path as object key. A standard S3 browser then displays the original directory structure.
Individual filters can be used to limit the replication process to specific data. A database supports the operation to guarantee efficiency. In this way, only new files or objects are replicated when the process is repeated.
Data access without downtime
Replication of valuable data to an independent storage medium protects the data against malware attacks, as well as against human and technical errors. A suitable software, like PoINT Data Replicator, not only ensures a reliable backup. It also guarantees seamless access to the replicated data if the primary storage system fails. Thus, not only the valuable data is protected, but also the work processes that rely on the data.