USE CASE BRIEF DEALING WITH DORMANT DATA Easily Identify, Delete, and Archive Your Unused Data KEYS TO GETTING YOUR STORAGE SPENDING IN CHECK Organizations need better tools to understand the value of their data and manage its lifecycle. Without Insight, More Data Means Higher Storage Costs • Define Corporate hoarding is prevalent. Many businesses, their employees, and storage administrators save everything they create because they believe those files might someday be needed. But simply stocking that data away on storage arrays is expensive and provides little or no value. Data can become dark, and IT or business users won’t know what data is there or how to use it. • Know Without the ability to determine which data is most important and which data is no longer useful, businesses are paying the same amount to store critical information as they are to store irrelevant data. your goals: Establish data retention policies based on what data is actively being used and/or is important long term to your business. your data: Use file search, filtering and visualization tools to take stock of the data your users are storing and how that aligns with your policies. • Take action: Remove or archive files that aren’t being used or that shouldn’t be stored on corporate resources, in line with your policies. DataGravity systems allow you to visualize and filter files to quickly and easily determine files you can archive or delete to save your company time and money. Accurately identifying which files should be retained, deleted, or at least archived onto cheaper storage media is difficult without having visibility into the files that are being stored, the contents of those files, and how they are being used. As more and more data is created, more effective methods are needed for IT administrators to understand their data and distinguish between valuable data that must be retained for quick access and data that should be deleted or archived. Results of Not Managing Your Dormant Data • Unbridled primary storage growth • Additional storage purchases waste IT budget • Harder for users to find data in growing deluge of files. • Continued overhead of managing old data • Less productive administrators • Increased data security and compliance risks Introducing A Simple Way to Identify Dormant Data Classic storage platforms have provided very little to help administrators manage the challenges of data growth within their systems. It’s difficult to identify which files are no longer being accessed, what content shouldn’t be stored on corporate resources, or what large files and end users are consuming too much space. The DataGravity Discovery Series enables IT administrators to assess dormant data by end user, file type and size, content, and access pattern timelines so that files can be safely archived and deleted. “Our compliance policy requires that we erase any files that are over 2 years old. Before DataGravity, there was no way I could guarantee that was happening.” CIO Re-Insurance Company REDUCE YOUR STORAGE FOOTPRINT AND SAVE MONEY WITH DATAGRAVITY With DataGravity built-in data analytics, IT departments can easily rein in rampant storage growth, allowing you to: • Understand your data demographics by topic, file types, sizes, owners and timeframe • Free • Reduce • Find your production storage footprint and overhead by removing files that are not critical to your business money moving dormant data to less expensive secondary storage up time by quickly pulling file usage reports identifying candidates for deletion and archiving and instantly recover deleted files as necessary • Save More than 50% of data in a company has no business, legal or regulatory value. The vast majority of data in an enterprise is unstructured and is growing at 60%-80% per year. Unstructured end user content is the # 1 problem when confronting aging data as surveyed by more than half of IT Managers. SIMPLIFY DATA LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT WITH DATAGRAVITY For organizations with growing amounts of data and a need to keep their finances in check, DataGravity allows you to: 100 Innovative Way, Suite 3410 Nashua, NH 03062 603.943.8500 [email protected] datagravity.com •Gain visibility into how your storage resources are being used and misused •Improve production operations by moving archivable data to secondary storage •Reclaim storage space by identifying and deleting files that provide no business value •Save money by deferring additional storage purchases DATAGRAVITY @DATAGRAVITYINC DATAGRAVITY ©Copyright 2015 DataGravity, Inc. All Rights Reserved. DataGravity believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. UC_dormantdata_20150402 Take control of your unstructured data with DataGravity. FOR MORE INFORMATION, GO TO DATAGRAVITY.COM