In an exclusive interview with CIOL, Sunny John shares his views on the importance of data integrity in enterprises with Usha Prasad.

Excerpts:

CIOL: Is the Indian SMB community aware of the benefits of data warehousing, and subsequently, integrity of data?

Sunny John: Small and medium businesses (SMBs) have become more aware of the technology that's available in order to ensure safety of data. And, it's time to take a decision on automating their businesses. Today, SMBs are also aggressively spending on the technology, and there has been a total change in their focus in the last two years. The awareness is growing leaps and bounds.

Emerging enterprises are aware about the technology and solutions, and the solution benefits that come in. Said and done, technologies are emerging - from tapes to disks (VTL) - and are also changing fast.

At Quantum, what we decided was that there should be a forum where product training and knowledge update has to be a constant endeavor, which we cannot escape. If we need to be at the edge of the technology we have to reach the leadership position. We need to inform the SMB community about the benefits of the technologies available and how it can give them all the benefits in the long run or for an effective growth.

CIOL: How serious are emerging enterprises in ensuring data integrity?

SJ: SMBs are ready to invest, but the fear is about investing further. They are clear that if they invest once it does not end there. But should realize that when it comes to technology upgradation it is a constant investment plan. In storage, if you want to grow, you have to make an investment, and to sustain it and grow further, you have to make more investment. There is a constant growth process to emerge the front end of the competitive edge. People understand that investment is required, but there are many who are not ready to accept and stay with some sort of technology.

A percentage of SMBs are very serious about IT implementation, but they do not have a separate IT budget. There is a need for a planned outlay. Education is very important to make SMBs understand the importance of IT implementation thus ensuring data integrity.

CIOL: How does data integrity help emerging enterprises in balancing performance and getting a decent RoI?
SJ: Technology is not that expensive today. The solutions are cost effective. But SMBs still fear adopting and using them. Automation has a real role to play, say in the auditing process, compliance or security. It helps a lot in planning and growth process as well. They need to have automation to sustain the growth.

At Quantum, we understand the market situation, we also chip in by offering training to our partners and resellers to provide knowledge, information, education and assure a decent RoI to SMBs. .

CIOL: What are the glitches that must be avoided so as not to compromise data integrity?
SJ: Automation does not come just like that. You require a network. And networks do not come without bottlenecks. When they fail to restore the data, there comes the pain area. The solutions offered by vendors definitely works and suits a particular requirement, but the fine tuning has to be done by the end user who should also understand the limitations of the solutions in use. In reality, there will be limitations and one has to make a judgment to plan and get good output.

CIOL: How relevant is data deduplication in the context of cleaning and maintaining data?
SJ: Deduplication is required for effective utilization of data, which is used frequently. This is where the ILM concept emerged. There's no need for big investment to keep away the data that need not be used. Today, a lot of data is shared. If you plan for a deduplication, you can have a centralized storage space which is in a way called compression. Deduplication is nothing but the comfort of managing data in a compressed form, divided and stored in a safe form.

Dedupe will be a very big tool in future because data is growing exponentially. And the right data should be available all the time. If enterprises don't have a dedupe in the storage space, then they are lagging behind.

CIOL: What are the security aspects related to data integrity and how can SMBs address them?
SJ: Security features are by default provided with the technological solutions. When you move into a digital form, security is one big feature, which has to be adopted to take care of the data.