Today’s organizations are generating more data at the edge than ever before, having to come up with new, creative ways to process and manage it in a cost-effective, efficient manner.
Government agencies are no exception to this trend. However, when it comes to data storage, they do have unique requirements in terms of compliance and regulations, accessibility, and IT support. These are driving the organizations operating in this sector to transform their digital IT, and invest more resources towards modernizing their edge infrastructure through the implementation of storage virtualization technologies.
What Are the Benefits of Storage Virtualization for the Public Sector
Addressing a multitude of challenges, there are many benefits of storage virtualization for organizations in the public sector including increased data security, high availability, and ease of management.
Data Security
Government agencies generate and store extremely sensitive information, and keeping that information protected is a top priority. This is where storage virtualization can offer significant security benefits for the public sector, especially at the edge. Centralized data management for example can prevent the loss of highly sensitive information during system failures, or even cyber attacks. The implementation of encryption components can also help to safeguard data from breaches, not only enhancing data security and compliance but also space utilization and storage, particularly for unorganized data and resources.
High Availability
Entities such as law enforcement, emergency services, and public transit all require fast access to data sources for their apps and services to both function correctly and keep the public they serve safe.
In this instance, a virtual storage solution can be implemented within close physical proximity to the data source, decreasing latency and bandwidth requirements and enabling the quick access and processing of data.
Another benefit of storage virtualization includes its ability to decrease downtime, the effects of which are hugely detrimental to public sector organizations. When configured with adequate levels of redundancy, virtualized storage can also help guarantee continuous access to critical data and applications for these entities.
Ease of Management
Public sector organizations seek to eliminate complexities within their datacenters, so they can focus on what they do best: providing services that benefit society. By centralizing management and reducing the amount of hardware required, virtual storage solutions simplify the data storage environment and allow for easy deployment across multiple locations.
Additional benefits of storage virtualization include its ability to save its users significant time and resources versus traditional storage infrastructure, thanks to the solutions leveraging this technology requiring less IT staff, and less specialist knowledge of the solution to deploy and manage them.
Overcoming Disasters Across the Globe Using Virtual Storage
From earthquakes to tsunamis, tornados, floods, and even pandemics, human societies are no stranger to natural disasters and crises. Though no strategy is fool-proof in preventing these events when they do strike, for the public sector in particular, having a solid disaster recovery strategy can help alleviate its effects, streamlining the process of getting the affected area back to normal and protecting the public from further harm.
Able to provide a secure and accessible location for backup and recovery, virtual storage solutions have proved invaluable across the globe when disasters hit. Edge-based distributed storage systems in particular play a vital role in overcoming the obstacles a traditional storage model would face in these scenarios, particularly in harsh computing conditions.
The COVID19 Pandemic
In 2020, life across the globe came to a grinding halt due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Government institutions and public bodies worldwide were left scrambling to find an effective solution to tackle the new, complex IT challenges the pandemic brought.
Many public sector employees whose roles weren’t dependent on face-to-face interactions were forced to transition to remote work, in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus, while public schools took to teaching classes online through digital learning platforms and over video conferencing.
Ideally suited to remote environments, virtual storage provided the perfect solution to this new challenge, helping to improve the productivity of those working and learning remotely with fast access to data and applications.
Those working in healthcare companies operating make-shift clinics and testing centers at the time, also benefited, accessing flexible storage infrastructure and high availability, with no unplanned downtime – crucial for ensuring the protection and fast exchange of valuable patient data.
StorMagic SvSAN: An Ideal Virtual Storage Solution for the Public Sector
In today’s data-driven landscape, organizations, including government agencies, face the challenge of efficiently managing the increasing volume of data generated at the edge. StorMagic SvSAN emerges as a critical ally, offering an optimal virtual storage solution particularly tailored to meet the unique demands of public sector organizations by providing the industry’s most cost-effective, lightweight, virtual SAN solution. It offers high availability and flexibility to government agencies, and is also incredibly simple to operate, using centralized deployment and management.
SvSAN delivers optimal data security at the edge through its integrated data encryption feature. SvSAN data encryption allows data to be encrypted without the use of specialized hardware. This allows ordinary server and storage infrastructure to be leveraged, resulting in significant cost savings. It also meets stringent data privacy and security regulations, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS and SOX.
Learn more about how StorMagic is delivering simple, highly available, virtual storage to the public sector, take a look at these customer stories:
