The start of a new year is a good time to look back at what you accomplished this past year. When it comes to data protection, keeping up with the challenges is tough. Veritas identified eight data protection tips for 2016. Were you able to keep up with them?

Data Protection in 2016

These are the eight tips Veritas listed:

1. Accelerate your digital transformation

Businesses today are more reliant on computers than ever; computers don’t just support backend operational processes, they deliver the product and they data they collect creates new business opportunities. Creating a consolidated backup and recovery process that works across all the physical, virtual, and cloud servers that now form companies’ infrastructure is key to supporting that digital transformation.

2. Get ahead of exponential data growth

Big data is becoming really big, and this development doesn’t impact just storage; it affects server and network utilization, too. Integrated backup appliances can help reduce the time, disk space, and network bandwidth needed to backup this increased data volume.

3. Go ahead, embrace the hybrid cloud

The hybrid cloud means your data protection solution needs to protect your data whether it’s on premises or offsite, whether it’s in cold storage, in use, or in transit between the two processing locations. Enterprise data protection solutions can help you manage your workloads and data wherever they reside.

4. Optimize existing applications and free up resources

Take advantage of solutions with self-service features to minimize the demands on your operational staff. As workloads move to the cloud, repurpose your infrastructure to support mission-critical processes that remain in the data center.

5. Reduce cost and complexity

Stop building servers from scratch and supporting individual components. The “appliance” model reduces the time and complexity of deploying systems and eliminates the problem of ensuring compatibility between multiple vendors’ products.

6. Take pragmatic steps towards an “As-a-Service” organization

Self-service and on-demand delivery of IT services increases agility and empowers customers and end users. Choose a solution that reduces the demands on your IT staff while meeting the business’s needs.

7. Ease the pain of multi-vendor virtualization

You may have good reasons for using multiple vendors of virtualization, and it shouldn’t complicate your data protection. Look for a product that supports multiple hypervisors and therefore lets you ease both your server and data protection management.

8. Integrate and simplify global snapshot management

Data protection today relies on snapshots and replication to deliver speedy recovery times. Make sure your data protection product provides a lifecycle for managing these snapshots so they don’t require special handling.

Data Protection in 2017

Have you integrated those 2016 data protection tips into your business yet? Whether you’re ready to tackle new challenges in 2017 or are still playing catch-up, dcVAST can help. We’re a Veritas technical support partner, with expertise in the Veritas data protection line of products. We can help you set up your Veritas NetBackup appliance or provide managed services to design, deploy, and execute a data protection strategy for your business. Contact us to talk about getting your data protection on top of the trends for 2017.