Outsourcing storage solutions

The onslaught of new government regulations has many enterprises scrambling to meet government storage deadlines and requirements. For many enterprises operating on lean budgets with small internal IT staffs, it makes sense to seek outsourcing services targeted at storage management. But just as do-it-yourself point solutions have limitations, services don’t necessarily have all the answers when it comes to meeting complex regulatory requirements.

Hewlett-Packard and IBM, companies that already offer a variety of IT services, are just starting to look at the new market developing around storage, compliance, and government regulations. While they don’t have any specific programs to address regulations, they do offer storage services that can be adapted to an individual company’s needs and that take regulatory concerns into consideration. Though they offer different services, both companies call their data-retention strategies ILM (information life-cycle management), and those strategies address everything from the creation of data to the best way to store and destroy data efficiently.

HP and IBM create solutions based on a customer’s existing infrastructure and data-retention policies. These solutions combine storage management software functions that let administrators tag and encrypt data, with strategic advice that companies can use to create data-retention strategies and policies. Neither offers a hosted storage solution, but they will train staff on best practices to maintain data.

Keep in mind that if you hire a service, you are still ultimately responsible for complying with the law. So be certain you have a clear vision of your company’s regulatory obligations and how the service you choose will meet them in the long term.