How to Sell Backup Solutions to Your CFO: Part 3
The regulatory consequences of data loss
In our two previous articles, we’ve examined several arguments that can help IT managers convince CFOs to invest in backup and recovery solutions. In this third and final installment, we’ll look at another compelling issue—the regulatory consequences of data loss.
The regulatory consequences of data loss
Government regulations and associated compliance requirements impact data retention needs and retrieval plans. Regulatory compliance describes what corporations or public agencies must comply with in regard to relevant laws and regulations. CFOs care about regulatory compliance because the consequences of non-compliance range from corporate fines to the loss of personal freedom in egregious cases.
Regulatory compliance tends to vary by industry. For example, Sarbanes Oxley mandates that 7 years of financial data be retained while HIPAA states patient data must be available for the life of the patient and 2 years post-mortem.
You certainly don’t want regulatory compliance to come back and haunt you with associated financial penalties for non-compliance. It’s better to allocate more storage for data retention. But what are the options for data retention?
Options for data retention
The natural data path for the backup process is primary disk to secondary disk to tertiary disk or tape or other media off-site—or the cloud. This whole process is commonly described as ‘disk to disk to X’ (D2D2X) where X is disk, tape or other media; today X is increasingly cloud storage. No surprise that more IT departments are evaluating and selecting public cloud offerings for storage retention as private off-premise solutions grow more costly and variable.
Cloud storage is a great option for long term retention if you can find an affordable plan. The elimination of tape media can potentially offset this cost. Investigate cloud backup solutions that offer long term retention with optimal space allocation and a regular backup schedule. Vendors that offer primary backup and cloud storage give you the ability to migrate data between sites and create a more flexible backup schedule to stage your data and lower your cost more.
