While Internet of Things (IoT) business models are dependent on data analysis, decision makers often struggle with how to wrangle all of that information, ReadWrite says. For example, “Data growth has been explosive in recent years with 63 percent of enterprises managing 50PB or more,” and many businesses can’t keep up with that growth.
Additionally, when their data can’t be managed well, decision makers can see challenges in how the company handles costs, and struggle with data migration plans. When these issues cause a business to slow down, decision makers are forced to invest in outside sources for help, which can cost anywhere between $50K to $5M per hour, and damage the company’s reputation, ReadWrite says.
As a result, before decision makers get tangled into an irreversible mess with their data, ReadWrite recommends following these three guidelines for data management:
- Data management solutions – If a business is accruing mostly binary and unstructured data, finding ways to save, archive and backup that data is key. Decision makers should take into consideration the rate of data acquisition and the growth of collected data. “Trading off the business need with the frequency of data collection, the amount of historical data needed, and the cost of data storage is essential to arrive at a sustainable data management strategy,” ReadWrite says.
- Data Security Solutions – It goes without saying, especially in today’s contentions cyber climate, that security should be top of mind when decision makers think about data management; “securing data is paramount as unauthorized access to the data can have costly consequences as witnessed by several high-profile breaches at FedEx, Target, etc.,” ReadWrite says. Decision makers should also device a plan so as not to lose any data during a breakdown or outage, and make sure the recovery process is up to speed, too.
- Where to store the data – ReadWrite says this is one of the most important points to consider when examining data management. Usually, decision makers will have to choose between storing their data on premise, or in a public cloud. Each entity comes with it’s pros and cons; for example, on premise infrastructure gives organizations more control but requires skills, resources, and strong processes for success, whereas cloud options enable businesses more flexibility, more IT resources, and “takes away the hassle of managing infrastructure,” ReadWrite says.
Decision makers might also have the option to go with a hybrid environment that combines on premise and public cloud infrastructures, which solve “stakeholder concerns related to control and proprietary issues and offer flexibility and on-demand scale” altogether.
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