The main challenge facing organisations that opt to store massive amounts of data is cost. Findings from our study of 600 data center experts identified that two out of every five organisations that store data in-house spend over $100,000 every year on storing hardware that could be redeployed, sold for reuse or returned to the manufacturer for a refund, and that also represents a security and compliance risk.
This challenge is wholly avoidable, but in light of regulatory pressures, organisations have started hoarding assets containing data in-house for fear of failure to achieve compliance with data privacy standards.
The reality is that stockpiling hardware is counterintuitive and offers a very short-term solution. As organisations continue to store more data in-house, the surface area for attack gets bigger and it becomes increasingly difficult for them to manage. What organisations need to do is manage both data and asset lifecycles by employing a process to regularly review and assess the value of that data and make a decision on whether it should be archived for future use, or sanitised.