As data and storage capacity continues to expand in this digital age, according to one industry analyst not enough Canadian executives are properly securing and managing their company’s data and storage infrastructures.
Participants at a recent media roundtable sponsored by Toronto Hydro Telecom Inc. agreed that with the growing amount of information in the world today, not enough is being done to prepare and protect business systems.
David Senf, director of Canadian security and software research at IDC Canada, spoke of the vast amount of information around the world to date and said if all global digital information were placed inside a stack of library books it would extend past the Earth to almost reach Saturn. In turn, he said, not enough business executives are showing a concern with their company’s information and storage systems and few are taking proper action when it comes to protecting them.
“Executives are more concerned with the reliability and uptime of their systems,” Senf said. “They want access to their company’s system where and when they need it.”But what it all comes down to, Senf says, is that the majority of Canadian executives need to do more planning to make sure their companies’ assets are well protected. For the most part, Senf says many executives are still not stepping up to the plate to take a leadership position.
“More needs to be done with management because we’re seeing lower budgets around this issue,” Senf said. “Organizations in Canada need to get their management more focused on risk management so they’ll know the proper security measures to put in place.”
In addition to re-evaluating executive priorities, Senf also says education and training are other factors that need to be addressed. The threat landscape is changing, Senf says. Many Canadian organizations are still focused on the external threats that may impact their business such as viruses, hackers and so forth. What many organizations fail to acknowledge, he adds, is the fact that internal threats such as employee malice also occur within companies.
“To avoid these things, it means more vigilance coming from the top of the organization,” he said. “Management needs to be involved, and training and the automation of processes and policies are also things businesses need to do to improve.”
Most small to mid-size Canadian organizations are either in the manual or automation stage of things, Senf says, whereas larger companies are more likely to be in the sustainable environment stage where processes and information are automated and streamlined to create more improved visibility.
Toronto Hydro Telecom, a subsidiary of Toronto Hydro Corporation and a data communications provider, focuses its efforts on helping medium to large size enterprises better secure, protect and communicate within their respected environments. The company offers utility-grade services around Ethernet, Internet, wavelength, private line, security and storage services.
Dave Dobbins, president of Toronto Hydro Telecom, says its TERA-Recovery solution is ideal for organizations of any size since it’s a fully managed and automated solution that helps maintain business productivity by continuously capturing and replicating data to an offsite location.
“It’s a complete solution that protects a whole company’s infrastructure,” Dobbins said. “Data is copied into our storage infrastructure and server file so that in the event of a company disaster, we can have them back up and running in as little as an hour. We do this through our Network Operations Centre which is monitored 24 by 7, 365 days a year.”
In the realm of its security services, Toronto Hydro Telecom also offers customers different managed firewall options. With these, users can also choose from different levels of security that range from mail to Web security to branch office firewall protection.
While solutions and services such as the ones provided by Toronto Hydro Telecom are available, Senf says the onus is on businesses to follow through with implementing them in order to adhere to compliance regulations and policies.
This is a great opportunity for channel partners dealing with the data storage and security space, Senf says, because while the financial and public sectors are pretty much on par, other markets such as manufacturing and retail markets are still lagging behind.
“These are where the opportunities are for the channel because there needs to be more awareness, understanding and education in these areas,” Senf said. “Vendors can help push these segments along in these areas too because all of [these organizations] will eventually have to transition from a manual [management] process to a sustained one.”
