Hong Kong enterprises need a cloud storage strategy, according to IBM that has acknowledges growing concerns about data security, lack of resources and tools, and planning.

IBM suggests companies to look beyond capacity and think about an infrastructure-wide scale-out when evaluating scalability to be able to support changing business needs.

Integration with other cloud platforms is also important to ensure unified, end-to-end provisioning across a heterogenous platform that can link with all other cloud platforms to increase productivity across the infrastructure.

"Hong Kong enterprises clearly need a cloud storage strategy that will help them optimize their storage infrastructure in line with their business objectives, and cloud storage is really the cornerstone of cloud computing," said Savio Ng, executive of Systems and Technology Group, IBM China/Hong Kong Limited.

"As businesses grow, the challenges of protecting data, creating capacity for new data, and guaranteeing quick access to data, are crucial." 

Critical considerations

While advising businesses on how they can create a fully optimized infrastructure Ng says that organizations should consider consultation through a best practice framework; leading technology; and a strong connection with business value.

Consultation can bridge the gap between technology and business value and IBM's perspective on cloud service delivery is based on this foundation, according to Ng.

The recommendations were welcomed by the Hong Kong businesses as they are aware of the challenges faced by high data growth rates as revealed by the MISAsia Enterprise Storage Survey findings.

Based on the survey of IT leaders from more than 60 Hong Kong enterprises, the findings reveal that data loss and data security (67%) is one of the top concerns of respondents in the region.

Insufficient storage resources for mission critical applications (30%) and lack of storage management tools (28%) is also on the top the list of concerns.

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