Always-On Protection Using Immutable Storage

Uploaded on 2023-05-30 in TECHNOLOGY--Resilience, FREE TO VIEW

Data is the fuel that powers businesses today. It drives decision-making, improves efficiency, and helps companies stay ahead of the competition. However, organisations must carefully handle the vast amount of collected and stored data. Some myriad regulations and requirements apply to the collection and storage of data, and they can be challenging to interpret, let alone follow.

But followed they must be because failure to comply can result in significant legal and financial consequences.

If your business is struggling to comply with the regulations surrounding data, you're not alone. Organisations everywhere are grappling with data privacy and security rules that are constantly evolving. You must continuously stay informed and adjust your policies and practices to avoid hefty fines and reputational damage.

For instance, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is a European Union regulation that applies to various financial institutions, including banks, insurance companies, investment firms, and cryptocurrency service providers. DORA aims to ensure that these institutions have sound information security systems. What's tricky here is that the regulation applies not just to the financial institutions themselves but also to any other companies they work with or outsource their technology services to, whether inside or outside the EU.

In other words, many companies are subject to the DORA regulation without knowing it.

Immutable Storage Offers Always-There Protection

Data security compliance is a daunting challenge, to be sure. But there are solutions. Immutable storage is one of the most valuable tools for complying with data regulations. This technology helps organisations ensure compliance by providing a storage system where data cannot be altered, modified, or deleted once written. The system automatically takes continuous data snapshots and stores them securely, so a business can recover to a recent point if there is ever an incident. Immutability is especially useful in industries that require strict data compliance, such as healthcare, finance, and government.

Immutability complies with the rules because it keeps data safe. It protects against data breaches and cyberattacks. With immutable storage, even if an attacker gains access to the network, it's challenging for the attacker to do damage because the data snapshots can't be modified, overwritten, or deleted.

Immutable storage also helps organisations meet regulatory requirements for data retention. In some industries, organisations must retain data for a specific period to comply with regulations. Immutable storage can ensure that data is retained and cannot be deleted or modified before the retention period has expired.

Immutability In Action

A great example of a company successfully keeping up with its data compliance requirements is Concorde Motorhomes, a maker of luxury mobile homes. The company faces extra challenges due to the specific requirements applied to the motorhome industry. Concorde must maintain the historical data of every vehicle it has sold since 1985. It must also ensure that all the data relating to any given vehicle - the type of shower head fitted and components used for the entry rail - is available due to the motorhome's extremely long service life cycle and the high levels of customisation that go with a mobile home.

Any loss of data would be harrowing for Concorde. There would be dramatic consequences to its production capabilities and customer satisfaction. That's why the company uses an immutable storage system. The system takes immutable snapshots every 90 seconds. The snapshots protect the data, guarding it against ransomware or user error. This system helps Concorde guarantee optimum levels of security, scalability, and data compliance.
Cloud providers make compliance easier

Another simple and effective way to ensure data security compliance is to partner with a cloud-based backup and recovery provider. These providers offer many advantages that make it easier for organizations to keep data safe and comply with many data regulations.

Cloud-based solutions offer scalability and flexibility that traditional backup and recovery solutions often don't. These solutions are essential for organisations with rapidly growing data volumes, as legacy solutions may struggle to keep up. With a cloud-based solution, you can quickly expand your backup and recovery capabilities to meet your needs without investing in additional hardware or infrastructure.

You can also work closely with your cloud solution provider to stay informed about updates and changes to compliance requirements. Good cloud providers will help you regularly review and update your backup and recovery strategies to ensure they comply with ever-changing regulations.

Many cloud providers also offer geo-redundancy and data residency options to help organisations meet data sovereignty requirements. For example, the European Union citizens' personal data must be stored within the EU, as mandated by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Cloud providers help organisations comply with these requirements by offering data residency options.

Cloud providers also offer a shared responsibility model, whereby they take responsibility for the security of their infrastructure while organisations focus on securing their data and applications. As an added benefit, cloud-based solutions can offer ease of management. For instance, cloud providers typically handle maintenance and updates, which frees your IT staff to focus on strategic tasks.

Final Takeaway

All organisations that collect and store data - which is now the vast majority - must contend with an accelerating feedback loop. As data grows in volume and value, hackers target it with increasing energy and expertise, and regulators impose more rules to keep it safe.

By taking a few key steps, organisations can keep pace with that loop and keep their data secure to drive their business to success.

Richard Massey is Vice President Sales, EMEA at Arcserve

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