Data Consolidation

Data consolidation is the procedure through which you install a central data storage unit to keep all databases easy to access. Consolidation is not unlike data center migrations but the focus is on having the files in a specified location rather than actually moving them around.

You may say that the definition says everything but there is point for going through such a complicated process. It is good to know why data consolidation is a good idea so that your company won’t falter along the implementation process. The easiest way sharing the importance is through an example so let me bore you for a second with the firsthand experience I had recently.

I used to work for a company where we had to deal with customer data on a daily basis. We had more than a thousand profiles to shift through and you'd expect to see at least some sort of order or system in which the profiles were stored. All the profiles were put into Word documents and were stored in a directory on a server computer I could tip over if I wanted to; it was right next to where we used to work. The server was shut down after closing and was booted up again in the morning.

We knew where the files were on the mounted network partition and everyone had all kinds of rights to do with the files as they pleased (in other words there was no data governance stewardship at this company). To top that off, imagine having to deal with the documents knowing that there was no backup, and someone else might be editing the file you were using at the same time. Some of the files were only available in paper format, some were cross-edited on the server by multiple users, some of the files were stored in docx, others were in doc, some computers could read the docx files, some couldn't. It was nothing short of a chaotic system.

The funny thing is that most of the issues could have been eliminated if the IT guy put the server away from where we could see it and enforced a group policy that prohibits deleting of the files. Also, the paper based profiles could have been added to the database, but no one really took the initiative to do anything about it.

What data consolidation could have done was make it easy for IT to supervise what was going on and who did what. With a centralized interface to manage all of the consolidated data, the valuable information would have been much safer. The system administrator could have made proper backups in case someone did something they weren't supposed to. While the lack of a properly maintained central storage device wasn't the only issue with the system, it was a large part of the problem. It not only made us confused as to where to look for something but the inconsistency throughout the documents made it near impossible to find anything in a timely manner, or at all for that matter.

What to do Before a Data Center Consolidation?

There are three requirements for the data consolidation procedure to succeed; a nod from the man, the desire from employees who manage data to use the system, and money to get the hardware and software infrastructure up. The main reason these consolidations don’t happen is money. Small business owners often don't think it's important to put their IT storage in the data center, and consolidating existing data is perceived as an unnecessary burden by the staff, especially in cases where the implementation is skimped on for financial reasons.

Small companies need to recognize that using data center consolidation best practices is a great way to invest in corporate assets. Useable, quick, and secure data storage make daily work more effective (fewer errors) and more efficient (you know where all of the information is located). If you've ever struggled with digital paper pushing, like I did when in the example above, you know that it gobbles tremendous amounts of hours.

A non-centralized data storage system, not unlike an untidy workspace, forces the least computer-minded employees to deal with error messages, missing files, missing directories and the lack of data consistency. They might not even understand the last term but it means that data is stored all over the place and nobody knows which version is the latest and who made the last changes.

Implementing Data Centers Consolidation

The most straight forward implementation is a simple NAS, Network-Attached Storage. It's most often a server computer with special software and a backpack of hard disk drives in it. The unit abstracts a storage device for network enabled peers on the file level. It kind of shows up as an extra hard disk drive on the local computer, but it has some extra functions, too. The most important feature is that everything is stored in one place so the system administrator can find his way around the backup software more easily if he wants to add backup or data archiving capabilities further down the road.

The second step after adding a NAS is requiring users to use it consistently. As soon as users understand the system, the organization and perseverance of data will be dealt with by the NAS software (and the system admin).