re you familiar with the term cold data? Cold data is data that is used infrequently but needs to be stored for the long term.
As the amount of data handled by companies increases, the amount of cold data also tends to increase, leading to problems such as increased data management costs and insufficient data storage capacity. Cold storage is attracting attention as a solution to this problem. Data management costs can be reduced by isolating unused data and storing it on separate media. In this article, we will explain what cold data is, how to manage it, and the types of cold storage.
What is cold data
In order to solve the problem of increasing data, it is important to classify data according to frequency of use and manage them accordingly. As the amount of data handled by companies continues to increase, the management of cold data is attracting attention.
Below is an overview of what cold data is and why you might want to archive cold data.
Cold data overview
Cold data is data that is used infrequently, is not edited, but requires long-term storage. This includes documents such as contracts that are required by law to be retained for a certain period of time. If data related to old projects that are not normally used for business are stored in the storage that is used on a daily basis, the storage may become overloaded and capacity shortage may occur.
Difference between cold data and hot data
Cold data and hot data are data categorized by frequency of use. Cold data is infrequently used data, while hot data is frequently accessed data.
I will explain the characteristics of cold data and hot data with specific examples.
cold data
- It is rarely read or written, so speed is not required
- Documents that must be stored for a certain period of time as stipulated by law (tax-related documents, minutes of shareholders’ meetings, research data, etc.)
- Records of past contracts and exchanges at the time of contract
- Surveillance camera images used when there is an incident, entry and exit records
hot data
- Since it is used frequently, the time it takes to save is short, and the speed of response is important.
- Sales status for each store and base, and customer order and return data
- Inventory quantity in the warehouse, product display data
- Real-time data based on weather, traffic
As the amount of data handled increases, it is necessary to classify the stored data according to the frequency of use in order to work efficiently.
Difference between archive and backup
Archives and backups both mean saving data, but they are different ways of thinking about saving.
The purpose of archiving is to store data for the long term. Since the data is not accessed every day, the data is separated and stored on the media, and is basically not overwritten.
Archiving is used to store cold data. Since data is not updated on a daily basis, it is suitable for separating data and storing it as an archive.
The purpose of a backup is to restore the original data when data corruption occurs. Backup duplicates live data and stores it on media.
Backups are used to store hot data. Files that are used on a daily basis are updated every day, so it is necessary to save all data by periodically overwriting the difference.
Why You Need Cold Data Archiving
Backing up infrequently accessed cold data in the same way as hot data increases the time required for backup and storage capacity.
By isolating and archiving infrequently used cold data, you can reduce backup time and storage costs.
Key points for resolving data storage issues
In general, there is an inverse relationship between the elapsed time since data was created and the frequency of use and viewing, and it is said that data that has been created for more than a year is almost never used. However, just because you no longer use it doesn’t mean you can delete it. Against the backdrop of the increased value of data as a management resource and the occurrence of compliance issues, it is rather common to store even unused data for a long period of time.
It is believed that most of the data held by companies is data that has been almost unused for a long time since it was created but is accumulated without being able to be deleted for various reasons. You can Manage such cold data with storage such as a file server, which is highly convenient but also requires a reasonable cost, leads to a shortage of storage capacity, and wastes the cost of adding storage to secure capacity. It also leads to
Separating data into frequently used data and cold data that is rarely used, and moving the cold data to cold storage is a solution to storage capacity shortages and increased costs. By moving cold data to cold storage, you can free up storage capacity that is highly convenient, such as a file server. In addition, it is possible to reduce costs by using low-cost cold storage to deal with the increase in cold data.
Advantages of cold storage
Here are the benefits of using cold storage.
Reduce data storage costs
Storage prices increase in proportion to capacity and speed. Cold data, which is accessed infrequently, does not suffer from slow storage speeds. Lower data storage costs by taking advantage of slower, cheaper storage.
Eliminate storage space shortages
HDDs and SSDs are used to store hot data for daily use. A feature of these media is that they are difficult to expand.
However, in the case of cold data, it is possible to separate the data and store it on an external medium whose capacity is easy to increase. Even if the amount of data increases, you can easily solve the lack of capacity by increasing the storage destination media.
summary
In recent years, the amount of data handled by companies has increased, and storage and utilization of data has become an issue. In order to solve the data increase, it is effective to divide the data into frequently used data and infrequently used data and manage them appropriately. By storing infrequently used data in cold storage, you can reduce costs and eliminate data storage capacity shortages.
If you are looking for the best cold storage for your company, we recommend NetApp Cloud Storage. NetApp cloud storage is characterized by the ability to tier and store data according to the frequency of data use. Infrequently used cold data is stored on low-cost object storage, and frequently used hot data is stored on SSDs or HDDs. NetApp cloud storage offers lower costs without sacrificing storage performance.
