The definition of data availability is the assured access to data when and where it is needed. Data availability requires a combination of technology, process, and people to ensure that data can be accessed when required. Technology solutions such as storage area networks (SANs), network-attached storage (NAS), and enterprise content management (ECM) systems provide the necessary infrastructure to store and protect data. Processes such as change control, backup and restore, and disaster recovery planning help ensure that data is accessible when needed. People who understand the business requirements for data access and know how to use the technology and processes to meet those requirements are essential to ensuring data availability.
Organizations can and have used data availability software to manage their organizations. Though some organizations can outsource this to third-party IT operations, it’s also fair to want to know what data availability is and how to ensure it for yourself. In this article, we’ll discuss how you can ensure data availability in your organization.
Use RAID storage technology.
One way to ensure data availability is to have several systems in place to uphold data access, should one storage device or hard drive failure. A redundant array of independent disks (RAID) is the process of replication of available datasets to improve data security. The “redundancy” is that these systems are essentially backup copies of your data, ensuring that you continue to have the same access routes to your data. If one drive fails, other drives in the array can still be used to access the data.
A common RAID configuration is RAID 5. This configuration stripes data across multiple drives and then parity checks it, testing the drives and making sure they all meet the same standard. If one drive fails, the data won’t be. Data can be rebuilt using parity information. For extra data durability, some use a RAID 6 configuration for data security. This configuration still stripes data across multiple drives, but RAID 6 configurations dual parity check the data, making doubly sure that everything is equal.
To protect your data from erasure, especially if it’s large amounts of data or sensitive data RAID storage technology is a great way to ensure data availability remains at a high level. Your redundancy disks should be stored in a separate location to increase data loss prevention.
Educate your employees on data availability best practices.
One key step to maintaining a high level of data availability is educating employees on best practices for accessing and using data. Employees need to understand the importance of your organization’s data availability and know how they can help keep the data safe and available. Employees should also be aware of any procedures they need to follow in the event of a technology failure or other disruption to service.
There are several things you need to ensure that your employees are educated on when it comes to data availability and maintaining it. The first thing is to inform them about what can affect data availability and cause a negative impact on data durability.
There are five main categories: technology failures, people failures, process failures, natural disasters, and malicious attacks from hackers. Technology failures, such as unintentional downtime can be caused by things like power outages or hardware malfunctions. People's failures include things like human error or purposeful sabotage of your company’s sensitive data. Process failures could be due to something like incorrect settings or corrupted files. Natural disasters include events like floods or fires. Malicious attacks can come from hackers or cybercriminals, leading to harmful data breaches.
Knowing these possible causes for data loss will then inform your curriculum for educating your employees on how to perform the best practices of data availability management. If you want to outsource your data management and availability, there are services out there that specialize in data management and can find the right plan for your needs.
Overall, data availability is important in any organization because it allows for critical business operations to continue without interruption. By ensuring data availability, you can minimize the risk of lost data and ensure that your organization can continue to function as usual in the event of a data loss incident.
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