Efficient data management is crucial for organizations of all sizes. This blog post will explore how automated storage tiering can revolutionize your approach to data management, unlocking cost savings, improved performance, and streamlined workflows.

The Importance of Efficient Data Management

Data is an organization’s lifeblood. It fuels critical business decisions, personalizes customer experiences, and drives innovation. However, traditional data storage and querying methods often face challenges:

• Storage Silos and Data Fragmentation: Large enterprises often face the challenge of data being stored across multiple, disparate storage systems, leading to data fragmentation with hindered access and analysis. The problem compounds as data continues to accumulate rapidly across these siloed storage systems, making it increasingly difficult to retrieve and process required information promptly. Even if a central storage system exists, it may not be fast or scalable enough to handle the growing volume and velocity of data.
• Inefficient Utilization: Expensive high-performance storage might hold rarely accessed data, while critical information resides on slower, cheaper tiers.
• Manual Processes: Time-consuming manual efforts in data sorting, movement, and management create bottlenecks and increase the risk of human errors.

Challenges of Manual Data Storage Management

Manual data storage management presents several hurdles:

• Complexity of Large Data Volumes: Sorting and moving vast amounts of data is a time-consuming and error-prone process.
• Inefficiency of Fixed Rules: Data access patterns are dynamic. Fixed rules for data movement might become inefficient as usage evolves.
• Human Error and Security Risks: Manual interventions increase the chance of errors and security vulnerabilities during data movement.

Strategies for Implementing Automated Storage Tiering Management

Here’s a roadmap for successful implementation:

• Data Classification: Categorize data based on attributes like access frequency, sensitivity, and legal requirements.
• Choosing the Right Automation Tools: Select tools that provide policy-based tiering, automated data movement, and comprehensive reporting features.
• Regular Monitoring and Optimization: Continuously monitor storage metrics, access patterns, and tier utilization. Refine policies based on insights for optimal efficiency.
• Data Security Considerations: Implement robust security measures like encryption and access controls during data tier migrations to ensure data integrity.

What is Storage Tiering?

Data storage tiers are like filing cabinets with varying access speeds and costs. Frequently accessed data goes in an easily accessible drawer, while less accessed data gets stored in a less-used cabinet. Frequently accessed data resides on high-performance tiers, while less accessed data gets migrated to lower-cost tiers.

Storage Tiers

• Tier 1 Superior-Performance Storage: Ideal for mission-critical applications requiring the fastest access speeds (e.g., in-memory databases).
• Tier 2 High-Performance Storage: Suitable for frequently accessed data that demands high performance (e.g., frequently used application data).
• Tier 3 Mid-Performance, High-Capacity Storage: Designed for less frequently accessed data that still requires reasonable access speeds (e.g., user files, project data
• Tier 4 Low-Performance Storage: Stores infrequently accessed with minimal performance requirements (e.g., historical data, backups).

Why Choose Automated Storage Tiering?

Automated storage tiering offers several benefits:

• Effective Data Fetching: Critical data resides on high-performance tiers, ensuring rapid retrieval for time-sensitive operations.
• Cost-Effective Storage: Less critical data gets placed on lower-cost tiers, reducing overall storage expenditure.
• Data Classification: Auto-tiering can leverage data classification to automate data placement based on pre-defined policies.
• Aging Policies: Data can be automatically moved between tiers based on how long it hasn’t been accessed (data aging).
• Policy Customization: Administrators can define custom policies for data movement based on specific needs and priorities.

Configuring Data Storage Tiering and Data Movement

Automated storage tiering policies define how data moves between tiers. These policies can be configured based on various factors:

• Access Frequency: Data accessed more frequently gets placed on higher-performance tiers.
• Data Age: Data not accessed for a certain period gets moved to lower-cost tiers.
• Data Sensitivity: Highly sensitive data might always reside in premium storage for enhanced security.

Automated Storage Tiering in Archon Data Store

Archon Data Store (ADS) is a powerful and secure next-generation lake house that offers data archival and analytics in one platform. It helps organizations stay in control of their data and stay compliant, all while optimizing storage costs and improving system performance. With ADS, you can archive and decommission applications with robust features like large-scale search, processing, and analysis of data with detailed business insights.

The core objective of auto-tiering in ADS is to automate data movement based on pre-defined rules:

• Frequently Accessed Data: Moves to high-performance tiers for rapid access
• Less Accessed Data: Migrates to lower-performance tiers for cost optimization

Automated Data Storage solutions offer a tiered storage approach:

• Hot Storage: The most expensive tier, ideal for storing the most frequently accessed and critical data as it offers the fastest speeds and lowest latency. Data such as user accounts and active transactions should use this form of storage.
• Warm Storage: Best suited for balancing access speed and storage capacity for cost affordability. Data types such as recent backups or historical sales data are typically stored in this form of storage.
• Cold Storage: Less frequently accessed data that requires long-term retention such as archived emails or old legal documents reside in cold storage mediums like tape libraries or cloud archives that are optimized for cost-effective storage.

Accessing data on diverse tiers in data optimization:

To explain these points clearly in the context of data optimization processes in numerous storage tiers:

• Unified User Interface: Data optimization ensures that the user interface remains unchanged. This means that regardless of any improvements made to how data is managed or stored in the backend, users will experience the same interface when accessing the data.
• Query Consistency: Even if data storage methods or structures are optimized or changed, the queries users rely on to retrieve specific data remain functional without requiring modifications. Users can continue using the same queries to fetch data. This is crucial for maintaining continuity and user productivity.
• Unified Data Storage: The system can seamlessly store data from different sources or storage systems. This specification allows for flexibility in managing diverse data types and sources, consolidating them into a unified storage solution. This integration enhances efficiency and accessibility while accommodating various data storage requirements.

These points highlight how data optimization aims to improve performance and usability without disrupting user interfaces or querying processes, while also enhancing the system’s ability to handle and store diverse data sources effectively.

What’s next?

Realize a host of benefits with Archon Data Store, including efficient and seamless archiving and decommissioning pipelines, tightly integrated secure and compliant design, automated lifecycle management, reduced storage costs, and performance improvements.

It’s time to transform your data management practices. Work with Platform 3 Solutions for the implementation of future-ready solutions addressing the challenges of modern-day data management. Schedule a demo or request a consultation with our experts to learn more about how Archon Data Store can transform your approach to data storage and analytics. Visit our website at archondatastore.com or contact us to get started.