Data Protection Infrastructure: The Core of Every Organization’s Digital Transformation Journey

Authored by Ripu Bajwa, Director & General Manager - Data Protection Solutions, India, Dell EMC

Unarguably, data sits at the helm of the digital transformation journey of every organization. As revealed by the Progress Are Businesses Really Digitally Transforming or Living in Digital Denial Report, 94% of enterprise decision-makers consider analytics to be important (45%) or critical (49%) in their digital transformation efforts. 

Nevertheless, a successful digital transformation drive very much hinges on a well-devised data management strategy. More specifically, how well an organization keeps its data safe. And rightly so. Since data has turned out to be larger and more complicated in today’s virtual environment, an organization’s data protection infrastructure has been placed at the center of business success. 

Probably, this is the reason data protection processes are no longer a mundane IT task but considered an important tenet of a successful digital transformation drive. 

Legacy Data Protection Infrastructure in Today’s Increasingly Digitized World 

All traditional approaches to data protection as well as management have fallen by the wayside, as they cannot keep pace with the ongoing explosion of data volumes, the proliferation of modern devices, virtualization, and the rapid adoption of cloud. In fact, the data protection process of a number of organizations is not only inefficient but also complicated and cumbersome to take care of. Against this backdrop, organizations are increasingly feeling the need to give their entire data protection infrastructure a new lease of life for more reasons than one, including: 

• Explosion of data: Data is growing at a rapid pace. And it is compelling organizations to adopt a more efficient approach to protect and manage their data. 

• Storing data: It’s dangerous to store several copies of each file without any knowledge of what they are or why they need to be stored. Especially, in today’s digital era, this practice results in huge storage costs and makes it difficult for organizations to comply with new regulations. 

• The fragmentation of IT. Since IT is getting more fragmented, data is now stored in physical, virtual, and cloud environments and on a variety of devices. Hence, safeguarding data across different platforms, as well as applications, enhances operational complexities of data protection practices. 

Last but not least, traditional security tools go well with static IT infrastructure design. When these tools were designed, factors like integration with cloud services, emerging storage technologies, and virtual environments were not considered widely. 

Navigating the Way: Re-inventing the Data Protection Model 

To gain insights into the prevailing data protection scenario across the industry, we’ve recently conducted a Tweetchat on ‘Data Protection in 2019 & Beyond: Overarching Data Protection Trends to Define the Coming Time.’ During the session, we have engaged with CIOs to know their views on the overall data protection scenario as well as the strategies that every enterprise should adopt. These industry veterans unanimously have accepted the fact that data protection requirements of enterprises are still evolving and that it is essential, no longer an afterthought, for all organizations to pay attention to not only data protection but data recovery as well. 

Especially, in view of the Supreme Court’s decision to consider privacy as a fundamental right, Indian organizations are renewing their focus on data protection and privacy. And rightly so. Our country has already faced disruptions from cyber-attacks like WannaCry ransomware. These attacks and breaches pose serious threats to organizations, which may even lead to data loss and disruptions in business. So, the time has come for organizations to adopt standard practices not only to protect their data assets but also to address the need for data recovery. 

Indian businesses can ensure the safety of their data in several ways, including: 

• By limiting the access to sensitive information within an organization through proper authentication measures. Implementing a reliable security solution is mandatory to thwart cyber-attacks in the cloud environment. Further, it is necessary to encrypt a device comprising sensitive information. 

• Opting for operating systems, as well as software having in-built encryption options, which are gaining prevalence in the market. They are effective enough when it comes to providing an extra layer of security to data protection. 

• Creating protection copies is another good way to stay secure from accidental data loss. Further, companies should have a disaster recovery plan in place to ensure that they are resilient to any cyber-attacks or data loss.

To put it in a nutshell, deploying cutting-edge security solutions, in addition to the encryption of sensitive data, is a proven practice that an organization should follow for data protection. And this is probably the most effective way for them to sustain and propel their digital transformation drive in the long run, without the risk of being compromised. 

Given our customers’ growing preference for data protection, we, at Dell EMC, provide a plethora of data protection as well as security solutions, ranging from Integrated Data Protection Solutions to Disaster Recovery Solutions. To know more about our security solutions, visit here.