Organisations the world over are embarking on digital transformation journeys to become more data centric. But legacy IT cannot provide the performance, availability, ease of use and agility needed in the digital era.

This is exacerbated because enterprises have more data at their disposal than ever before. Data brings massive benefits when converted into information, but at the same time it presents many challenges. Companies can better serve their customers, solve complex business challenges, and develop new and innovative products and services. But small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggle to choose the best storage for their needs.

For those in healthcare, financial services and other sectors that handle large volumes of personal customer data, going into the cloud can be risky. The right data storage solution can make or break a business, and impact its ability to recover after a disaster and respond to changing customer and regulatory demands, and can even place the business at risk from cyberattacks.

But SME leaders don’t have the in-house time or skills to properly consider and implement their approach to data storage. Everyday operations and tasks demand their full time and attention, so what often happens is that a patchwork of solutions emerges.

This is where having a good channel partner can make all the difference, as they have the knowledge and expertise needed to unpack the key storage technologies available today and share what each one offers for different business needs. They will be able to help growing entities identify the type of data they have and their access needs as well as backup requirements. Importantly, they will be able to determine how much storage the business will require over the next few years, given that the amount of data created daily continues to soar. A good partner will understand which models are best suited to the business, such as traditional on-premises IT infrastructure, private cloud infrastructure, public cloud infrastructure, or a hybrid combination of all three.

When looking at modern storage solutions for growing entities, any good solution needs to be able to perform a range of functions. HPE Nimble, for example, is able to put data in the appropriate tiers, and allows users to access it on premises or from the cloud without needing any manual intervention. Because of this, it features support for relevant APIs so they can be integrated into cloud-based automated workflows. Similarly, because efficient data movement technologies are needed, it offers a range of replication options.

Beyond simply storage

Among the industry-leading enterprise storage providers, the best of them have introduced cloud-based predictive analytics platforms that go way beyond the monitoring aspects of yesterday’s legacy telemetry systems, harnessing all the power of AI and machine learning to monitor and manage system health far more easily and effectively. The cream of the crop goes beyond simply storage, to monitoring logical objects such as virtual machines and applications, too. These systems completely transform the support experience while dramatically enhancing performance, availability and administrative productivity, as well as the reliability of operations.

At the end of the day, this all allows those who are tasked with managing IT and storage infrastructure to be far more productive, and able to shift their focus away from mundane and onerous tasks and projects towards innovation and business support. It also improves the performance and agility associated with deploying and managing storage resources while cutting the cost of operations and saving money. It drives enhanced application development and administrative productivity, and lessens unplanned downtime, thereby protecting revenue and lowering business risk.

Another example is the HPE MSA portfolio of hybrid storage solutions, which offers several key advantages for companies of all sizes, who are looking to deploy SAN-based storage. These solutions offer an affordable acceleration to hybrid-flash storage, real performance that companies can see and experience, and proven simplicity in deploying and managing storage resources.

HPE, through Tarsus Distribution, offers a breadth of solutions that cater to every type of business requirement

Designed to meet entry-level storage requirements, these solutions are ideal for users with fixed capacity and performance needs supporting smaller IT workloads. However, for larger dynamic workloads, the range offers solutions with far higher performance and capacity, offering the flexibility to scale both of these requirements to meet demanding IT workloads.

HPE, through Tarsus Distribution, offers a breadth of solutions that cater to every type of business requirement, from the smallest company to the largest enterprise. The company’s storage solutions are able to respond to varied capacity, scale, performance and security needs, providing a solution to fit each business, while offering the best value.