Don't let your data be a sitting duck

Eliminating ‘copy data’ is a common-sense approach to decreasing the chance that somebody will walk off with your sensitive information.

As Gary Reiner, former CIO of General Electric, said recently, the three biggest challenges to cloud adoption are security, security and security. The challenge, however, is not the actual level of security, but rather the fear that often accompanies it. The reality is that most cloud providers devote greater resources and expertise to security and have a better record at keeping data secure than many of today’s enterprises. But because security is so critical, it is easy for organisations to use it as an excuse for not embracing new technologies.

This attitude will prove costly. Data is the lifeblood of any organisation, especially in cloud environments. Keeping it secure is critical to continued growth and, with the explosion of data in recent years, that task is becoming increasingly burdensome. There is a way, however, to not only access your data more quickly and easily, but also to simplify your security strategy and minimise data risk.

It all starts with ridding your organisation of copy data — the numerous copies of your production data. Whether it’s used for backup, disaster recovery, test and development or analytics, copy data is the driving factor behind the storage explosion that organisations around the world are struggling to manage.

Not only does copy data prevent organisations from becoming more agile, cost efficient and productive, it also makes them less secure. Think about it — if a shop has 10 entrances as opposed to two, which building is more complicated and costly to secure?

Leveraging virtualisation to eliminate copy data removes data from its silos. These data repositories are often unused in day-to-day operations and are not readily available to other systems — limiting agility and acting as a sitting duck for cybercriminals. By using a single copy to spin up unlimited virtual copies, organisations can replace the siloed systems they’re currently using and quickly access their data for any use case where a copy of production data is required. With your production data safely stored in just one location, you can focus security efforts and put the right controls in place to easily manage access.

Copy data management tools can also improve security efforts even after a breach has occurred. Organisations can mount a point-in-time of the system in a known good state and compare it to a state after an intrusion is suspected. It also dramatically improves disaster recovery, enabling organisations to get back up and running. And recovery testing can be executed on demand, providing consistent recoverability of critical applications.

While eliminating copy data is not a formal security solution, it is a common-sense approach to managing potential vulnerabilities. Fewer copies can decrease the chance that somebody will walk off with your sensitive information, find the opportunity to make their own copy of a copy or mistakenly compromise data.

Image courtesy David Sun under CC