Cost Pressures Lead Law Firms To Explore Cloud-Based Storage
Law Firms Are Struggling With Rapid Data Growth
Many law firms are facing rapidly growing data storage needs. Data storage needs for many mid-sized law firms have grown to one, two, or even five terabytes of data. Data storage for law firms include data pertaining to litigation, documents, email, application related data, and databases.
As a consequence of this data growth, many IT teams are struggling with the burden of managing backups, off-site replication, and all the associated systems. Therefore, IT folks at many law firms are asking themselves: “How can I get out of the file server business?” It’s a system that requires a lot of work, a lot duplicate data, a lot of migration and a lot of headaches for many law firms.
While data growth is a concern, law firms are also evaluating their business continuity strategies in the event of a major disaster (either natural disaster or human error). IT teams are determining the maximum amount of time an outage can be tolerated with no access to the company data or email? What is the desired recovery time?
In a previous post I outlined potential problem areas with traditional data recovery methods which could take anywhere between several hours to several days. It is unacceptable for law firms to be “offline” for hours or even days. The cost of lost time and productivity quickly grows to several thousands of dollars.
Let’s explore briefly some available options to address rapid data growth:
With a traditional approach to data storage, law firms have their most important data on file servers or on storage arrays as part of their SAN, and that’s data that always needs to be accessible. If the data can not be accessed then the firms lose money. Many law firms have built out an infrastructure to protect that data set where they send data to tape or different types of disk, they may send it across town to an entire different building in case of a disaster. If firms need to manage more data sets, then they purchase new storage equipment. For example, the firms’ vendors would deliver and install the additional hardware and disk drives, and future storage devices, shelf space, and consultation would come at an additional cost. Vendors would include data storage management companies as well as companies offering infrastructure virtualization services. However, some of these options often entail major outlays of capital expense which can be challenging during this current slow economic recovery.
Therefore, cost pressures have led some firms to explore cloud-based technologies such cloud storage services and cloud storage gateways. Instead of a law firms buying and maintaining their own storage hardware, firms pay a monthly or annual subscription fee which in many cases provides firms with more manageable operating expenses.
The 2011 American Lawyer’s annual law firm technology survey shows that 63% of law firms say that they are using some type of cloud-based solution. Cloud storage providers and cloud storage gateway services are among the most promising data storage solutions for law firms because of the large economies of scale they can offer.
The same survey also discovers that 77% of law firm respondents who have used cloud services describe their cloud computing experience as positive. When asked “What have been the biggest benefits of cloud computing?”, 80%
of firms answer that the biggest benefits are simplified support and maintenance.
So, what’s keeping law firms from flocking to cloud storage providers to solve their growing data storage requirements? Security and data control are the greatest concerns preventing law firms from adopting cloud storage.
While firms are acknowledging the efficiencies of the cloud storage technologies they are taking a careful look at how and where their data is stored and which security measures are necessary to protect that data.
Addressing Security Concerns
Cloud storage solutions are not a risky place to store sensitive data and many law firms are implementing cloud storage and backup services . The first step when exploring cloud storage is understanding the underlying security concerns.
End to end encryption
Data should be encrypted before it leaves the four walls of your data center. No data should leave a law firm’s computer room or data center without encryption and no one at the cloud storage facility should be able to read any of your data.
SSL for secure connections
All cloud storage offerings rely on a secure connection while the data is in transit, this system provides an additional layer of security.
Cloud credentials
With a firm’s own credentials, a firm assures that only authorized personal have access to data, and data will remain separate from any other data. Only authorized members of a law firm’s staff will have access to the data.
Backup and recovery
In conclusion, cloud storage and cloud storage gateways also have a built-in backup component as the data is replicated across multiple data centers and regions within the provider’s data center infrastructure. In the event of a disaster resulting in data loss at a law firm’s business location, data recovery times and access to critical data is often accomplished within 30 minutes or less. These RTOs (recovery time objectives) are backed by strong SLAs (services level agreements).
I work with several data continuity providers, feel free to contact me for a complimentary cloud storage technology assessment for your firm.
