How to stay on the right side of the law

Resellers have a key role in ensuring firms understand and respond to compliance, writes James Ward

Companies are very aware of the need for storage polices and technologies that meet generic and sector-specific regulatory demands.

At a time of tight expenditure controls in increasingly competitive markets, new legislative imperatives have added a whole new level of complexity to storage solutions for end users already burdened with managing huge data growth.
This in turn has raised the profile of the channel in working with vendors to meet these new challenges. And in adopting smarter, compliant storage technologies, end users have benefited from more resilient solutions enabling, for example, significantly improved business continuity.
Today, compliance extends well beyond Sarbanes Oxley and the Data Protection Act to include effective email and storage policies. For example, an email has the equivalent standing as a letter, so over-writing a back-up tape is comparable to shredding a paper file ­ and equally illegal.
The impact on the end user has been the need for a more responsive and flexible IT infrastructure designed for growth. In turn, in simplifying an inherently more complex environment, the role of the channel partner has become more important in putting together information lifecycle management, data archiving and data security solutions, for example, to meet increased demand for storage.
On one hand, companies have no choice but to address compliance directly if they are to stay on the right side of the law.
Yet firms that comply early can gain a competitive edge over those who wait until the last moment.
This catalyst for change may take one of several forms. Compliant solutions tend to be less disparate, delivering reduced cost of ownership and easier maintenance.
The change itself will also be
less complicated because the end user can control the implementation timetable.
The pressure on storage policies and technologies to ensure sound data retention can only become more intense. There is a real opportunity for the channel to stake its claim as the driver for positive change, to the benefit of all.
James Ward is managing director at Hammer.