WHAT DO YOU DO WITH ALL THAT DATA?

Megan Poljacik • November 4, 2024

Since the dawn of the digital age, companies have been storing data… and a lot of them are still storing that data 25+ years later. Should you really keep all that information? In some cases, it is legally necessary, and it is always a good idea to have backups for disaster recovery.


Companies need to store data for the long haul due to a variety of reasons. It is essential for legal and litigation purposes, such as dispute resolution, investigations, and can be used as evidence. And of course, long-term data storage plays a vital role in disaster recovery, ensuring that companies can quickly recover from data loss, cyber incidents, or natural disasters. Because of this, managing the data lifecycle effectively has become a critical aspect of business. A Data Lifecycle Management plan ensures that data remains secure, accessible, and compliant with regulations.


Forming a Data Lifecycle Management plan comes with its own set of challenges. Data is often spread across different systems, such as financial data stored in Quickbooks vs documents in Sharepoint or even email in O365. Stored data can be surmised into 3 categories: hot, warm and cold. Hot storage refers to data that is actively used or accessed frequently. An example would be a database. Warm storage is data that is accessed less frequently but still business critical. Cold storage is data that is saved for compliance or archival purposes. Companies must determine which category the data fits in and then choose the most appropriate and economical way to store it. Companies often use a combination of these storage tiers to optimize data management, meet varying access requirements, and control costs effectively.


The next step is determining where to house the data. Each category will have its own costs and options, depending on your budget. The market shift towards subscription-based data storage services over traditional on-premise solutions is significantly impacting business decisions. With subscription models, organizations can access scalable and cost-effective storage solutions without the high upfront costs associated with maintaining on-premise infrastructure. This shift allows companies to allocate their resources more efficiently, as they can pay for storage based on their actual usage, leading to greater flexibility and cost predictability in managing their data storage needs.


Lastly, when data has reached its end of life, a company must have a plan for destruction. Having a set policy on when and how to get rid of data is crucial—it helps protect sensitive data and ensures regulations are being met. Use a certified recycler to provide a certificate of destruction for any hard drives. Cloud service providers often offer data disposal such as overwriting data multiple times to prevent recovery and using encryption keys to render data unreadable. Be sure to outline a plan for internally tracking the data destruction process for visibility and accountability.


With the rapid growth of data, mastering Data Lifecycle Management is crucial for organizations to safely store their data while managing risks and ensuring compliance. By proactively addressing the challenges and implementing effective strategies, businesses can streamline their operations and enhance data security in today's data-driven world.


Uncomplicate IT News Blog

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE CLOUD GOES DOWN?

By Megan Poljacik & Bryan Doherty • November 24, 2025
The internet has had a series of bad days over the last few months. In October, Microsoft 365 briefly went sideways in North America after a network misconfiguration disrupted access to Teams and Exchange Online before service recovered the same day. A few weeks later, Microsoft Azure suffered an outage after a faulty configuration change was pushed to Azure Front Door Configuration, affecting Microsoft 365, Xbox, and other services worldwide. Around the same time Amazon crashed, stating that an AWS disruption stemmed from a DNS automation bug associated with DynamoDB. This is an automated system that directs internet traffic that made a timing mistake, and that small glitch quickly snowballed and knocked parts of the service offline. Most recently, Cloudflare, a service many websites use to load faster and block bad traffic, went down, leaving millions unable to access sites and services. It’s no surprise that many business owners are now asking whether the cloud is still a safe choice for their business. Short answer: yes. For most small and mid-size companies, the cloud is still the safest, most cost-effective place to run everyday tools. It delivers enterprise-grade security, constant patching, and built-in resilience that would be expensive to match on your own. But “safe” doesn’t mean “never fail.”

ESTABLISHING AN AI POLICY FRAMEWORK: BALANCING INNOVATION AND RISK

August 27, 2025
By Bryan Doherty

IMPACTFUL VIRUSES IN HISTORY: STUXNET

By Megan Poljacik • July 31, 2025
In the early 2000s, tensions in the middle east were on the rise. Iran’s government had begun expanding its uranium enrichment capabilities, insisting it was for nuclear energy purposes. However many countries around the globe feared it was a coverup for a nuclear weapons program. Despite pressure from United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran continued to enrich uranium. Frustrations reached a fever pitch and it appeared a conflict was imminent, until a mysterious solution came from a completely unexpected source: the Stuxnet Computer Worm.