Enterprises are continually faced with finding new and efficient ways to keep their data long-term. Meeting enterprise compliance requirements for data retention is the most important element. In this blog, we’ll examine Cohesity CloudArchive Direct, explore its enterprise use cases, and discuss some real-world experiences.
What is CloudArchive Direct?
CloudArchive Direct is a policy-driven archival feature that allows enterprises to archive NAS/file data directly to a storage target—typically cloud. No data will be stored on-premises within Cohesity with this option, but it will index and store metadata. We also have the option to compress and encrypt the NAS data set on-prem, giving customers the flexibility to do what they want with their data ongoing.
Long-term Retention Use Case
Depending on the industry there are different compliance regulations to follow. In my experience I have seen many approaches. Enterprises that are only mandated to keep data from seven years, but choose to still keep it forever. Or healthcare organizations that choose to keep their data in accordance with HIPAA—and some elements of SOX. Or enterprises that keep little to nothing. Regardless of where your enterprise sits with long-term retention, how to keep this data around will be important.
Migration Use Case
Perhaps your enterprise is comfortable with its long-term retention needs and has a strategy in place today. Cost-cutting measures or systems that are coming to be end of life may have you looking at new options, including the cloud. In that case your enterprise will need to migrate the data to your new option of choice. Having a tool that will help you with this in an efficient and seamless way will help ensure the integrity of your data in its new location.
Data Analysis
One of the most common issues faced by organizations is the ability to analyze the data they have. Oftentimes there are multiple copies of the same data, all over the place and no one knows what they really have. A solution with data analysis and machine learning services readily available on major cloud vendors such as AWS, Azure and GCP. This is an important element of being able to do successful long-term IT planning especially if it can be done in its original format.
Data retention is inevitable and should be done correctly. CloudArchive Direct improves the possibilities for your long-term retention needs, migration capabilities, and creating opportunities for proper data analysis.
