When was the last time you took a step back to evaluate how the software and systems powering your business work together underneath the hood? Chances are, you rely on a variety of applications to manage tasks like accounting, customer relationship management, productivity tools, and more.
At the same time, specialized business application storage servers handle mission-critical responsibilities like housing your files and databases. But are you fully utilizing the synergy between these two technological pillars? By understanding their interconnection at a deeper level, you can squeeze more value from existing IT investments and resources.
As you continue reading, you’ll gain insights into how optimizing this relationship can help streamline your operations and enhance productivity. Let’s dive in!
Hardware Infrastructure
First, it’s important to have a basic understanding of your hardware infrastructure. What type of storage servers are you using—NAS, SAN, or DAS? How are they configured, and what protocols do they use? Taking inventory of these core components lays the groundwork. It’s also wise to standardize on a platform like that of a particular vendor to simplify management over time.
Application Architecture
Next, evaluate the different business applications in your environment. What functions do they serve? How do they integrate and share data? Mapping these software solutions provides insight into usage patterns and dependencies. It’s common for tools to rely on centralized databases or file shares for storing templates, profiles, documents and more.
Gaining a thorough understanding of your business applications and how they interact is essential for leveraging synergies with your storage infrastructure.
Take inventory of each software solution and document its core functions and features.
For example, you may rely on a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to store client profiles and track opportunities. An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system likely manages financials, inventory, purchasing and more.
It’s also important to understand how applications share or integrate data. Your CRM may pull in customer contacts from your database for marketing campaigns. Purchase orders initiated in the ERP could potentially trigger inventory adjustments. Evaluating these dependencies provides insight into usage patterns and where optimization opportunities exist.
- Most business continuity applications also require centralized databases to function properly.
- For instance, a CRM stores client profiles and activity history in a backend database.
- An ERP similarly relies on databases to house charts of accounts, item records, and transactional data.
- Your productivity suite probably maintains documents and templates in shared file locations as well.
Gaining visibility into database and file system usage allows for intelligent provisioning of storage resources.
For example, databases supporting transactional systems will require high-performance storage optimized for random read/write operations. Reference data or archival files can utilize lower-cost, capacity-optimized storage.
Application business continuity administrators should also be consulted to understand roadmaps and strategic plans. Upcoming releases may introduce new capabilities or deprecate older features. This impacts underlying infrastructure needs over the long run. It’s also worth investigating integration points between disparate systems. For example, connecting a CRM to an ERP for automated order processing.
Taking a thorough, multi-faceted look at applications provides the foundation for aligning storage solutions optimally. It ensures the right infrastructure supports current and future usage scenarios. The result is maximum efficiency and performance within budgeted costs.
Optimization Opportunities
With awareness of your applications and storage, opportunities for optimization should emerge. For example, are certain file types better suited to one storage technology than another? Can underutilized servers be consolidated or retired to reduce licensing fees? Collaborating with IT, look for ways to right-size infrastructure for core workloads.
Performance Monitoring
Proactive monitoring of your systems is key. Tools like SNMP, storage analytics and application-level diagnostics provide a performance pulse. Watch for bottlenecks developing between applications and backends. Catching issues early averts disruptions. Metrics also support right-sizing decisions and capacity planning exercises.
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Naturally, your valuable corporate developer data requires secure backup and disaster recovery strategies. Evaluate RPOs and RTOs to ensure service levels are sufficient. Storage-based snapshots, replication and cloud archiving ensure protection. Tests restore and verify the ability to bounce back from failures safely. Look for synergies between storage-aware backup software and target repositories.
Security Controls
Data security is always a top priority. Consider role-based access controls for storage, encryption of data at rest, and encryption of backups. Tight integration between applications and storage security models provides consistent protection. Monitor for anomalies and unauthorized access attempts. Regular vulnerability assessments and patching keep your defenses modern.
Hybrid Cloud Integration
Does your business continuity require occasional burst capacity or disaster recovery sites? Hybrid cloud services offer the flexibility to expand on-premises infrastructure on demand. Investigate storage gateways or cloud providers that seamlessly integrate with your applications. This keeps capital expenditures low while maintaining performance and management simplicity.
Software-Defined Infrastructure
Newer software-defined storage technologies abstract infrastructure components into virtualized, policy-based pools of resources. This brings agility to provisioning and presents storage as code. Applications request resources on-demand while administrators gain visibility and control from a centralized console. Consider a software-defined data center approach for future-proofing.
Cost Management
Of course, controlling corporate developer technology spending remains important. Application-aware storage optimization reduces waste. Rightsizing also lowers the TCO. Monitor utilization trends to right-provision. Consider subscription- or utility-based pricing models that guarantee performance for a predictable fee. Storage becomes “pay as you grow” without large upfront costs.
Planning for Growth
With an understanding of current usage, forecast future demands. How might applications, users or workloads expand in six months or a year? Proactively adding performance headroom and capacity ahead of critical needs ensures smooth sailing. Collaborate across departments to incorporate technology planning into your company’s roadmap.
Knowledge Transfer
For sustainability, share corporate developer operational knowledge with colleagues. Document best practices and standard configurations. Educate application owners about underlying infrastructure dependencies and SLAs. Cross-train staff to maintain expertise within the organization. Outline responsibilities and communication channels to foster ongoing synergy between teams.
Conclusion
In summary, taking a holistic view of your applications and storage infrastructure delivers value. The dynamic relationship between these technological pillars supports core operations. With insight and optimization, extract maximum efficiency from investments. Monitoring performance and right-sizing resources controls expenses. Backup and disaster recovery strategies safeguard valuable data. An understanding of synergies also positions your organization for controlled growth and innovation into the future.
