
What to keep, what to throw out...?
Published: 17 January 2005 13:20 GMT
Stricter regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Basel II have left businesses unsure as to how they should be storing data and exactly what they should be keeping.
More than half (52 per cent) of the European IT directors surveyed by research firm Vanson Bourne are unsure of the effect compliance will have on their data storage strategy.
Just over a quarter (27 per cent) of respondents, predominantly in the tightly regulated financial services sector, agree that compliance is forcing the data storage issue.
Gary Smith, CEO and president of Ciena, which commissioned the study, attributed some of the uncertainty to the European focus of the survey, given many companies are not yet bound be new legislation, though any with a US listing certainly need to be on top of the SOX issue already.
“Legislation is a key factor propelling the deployment of data storage solutions for business continuity and disaster recovery applications in the US. However, it is not surprising that IT directors in Europe differ in opinion on the importance of this issue," said Smith in a statement.
Analyst house Gartner expects compliance-specific IT spend within large enterprises to hit around $2.5m per company, with storage and security likely to account for large slices of that particular pie. With a lot of basic compliance spend back in 2004, IDC expects total storage spend globally to increase a modest five per cent to $27.3bn.
Speaking to silicon.com before the SOX deadline hit on 15 November 2004 one storage solutions vendor said the greatest confusion existed over what to keep and what not to keep.
Mark Ellis, CA's director of storage and information management, said many companies will be tempted to keep everything and at least by doing so know they've kept the right things
But Ellis likened such a reaction to a "rabbit caught in the headlights".
"Legal compliance is not about what you need to keep, it's about knowing what you can delete," said Ellis.
Ciena's Smith echoed this need for "IT directors, as well as executive management, to be educated about data retention" to steer their businesses through the common pitfalls of either doing too much or too little.
You will provide a central point of contact for all web infrastructure development, configuration, capacity and continuity. Experience of web ...
You will provide a central point of contact for all web infrastructure development, configuration, capacity and continuity. Experience of web ...
As a consultant you would need to demonstrate experience of a significant number of the following: - Capturing and analysing computing platform and ...
CIO50 2008
The silicon.com CIO50 2008 profiles the most influential and innovative tech chiefs in the UK across all industries and organisation size, from the biggest FTSE100 companies to high growth dot-com start ups and the public sector. The list was voted on by the UK CIO community and a panel of experts. Find out more in our latest special report.
Momentum Webcast: Assessment and Deployment Best Practices for Windows Vista (Level...
Momentum Webcast: Moving Forward With Windows Vista SP1 (Level 100)
Microsoft Office System Webcast: Tips and Tricks for Office 2008 for Mac: Incredible...
Microsoft Office System Webcast: Compatibility Tips for Office 2008 for Mac and the...
Stories from the web...
Copyright ©1995-2008 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Top of page
silicon.com Dear silicon.com... ZX Spectrum nostalgia, Mac attack, tag a bag… Reader Comments of the Week
Steve Ranger Editor's Blog: Home computing from Acorn, Amiga and Amstrad, to the ZX Spectrum Nostalgia 2.0...