By implementing Brocade File Services, organizations can lower IT costs and maximize storage resources, streamline ongoing consolidation and migration initiatives, improve business continuity/disaster recovery, enable Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), and increase data security and regulatory compliance.

Many IT organizations duplicate corporate data at each remote branch office site for convenient user access, which means all of that data has to be routinely backed up and secured. Some organizations even deploy multiple servers at each site just to handle single-function applications. However, these sites rarely have dedicated IT personnel, so maintenance and troubleshooting often require the use of part-time, unskilled, or roving personnel.

Data consolidation and migration used to be point-in-time IT projects. However-due to rapid changes in hardware, technology, and capacity demands-this is no longer the case. Ongoing data migration is essential for coping with ever-changing requirements and optimizing available storage assets, but it can also increase client downtime, further stretch already-thin IT resources, and create headaches for IT administrators who must support heterogeneous data infrastructures.

A reliable business continuity strategy typically involves frequent partial backups, less frequent complete backups, and a combination of onsite and offsite storage of the backup media. This can be a daunting task for a small business with one office, but for an enterprise with many branch offices and a highly distributed backup infrastructure, it can be a nightmare.

Using an ILM strategy, organizations can maximize their existing storage resources and improve ROI. Instead of wasting valuable primary storage space on documents that haven't been accessed in months, organizations can migrate those documents to less-expensive, second-tier storage devices. Reduced backup costs can lead to even higher savings.

Even though distributed enterprise data continues to grow at a rate of 50 to 75 percent a year, current data management solutions do not always provide adequate security, ensure compliance, or give IT administrators a comprehensive view into internal enterprise file data access rights. In addition, users often have difficulty knowing which resources they can access and where those resources are located.