The most common reason for companies to have a network is for secure storage and manipulation of business data. Whether for accounting databases, logs, marketing materials, CRM, client files, inventory, workflow management, or whatever data comprises your crucial business assets, they must all be available, secure and protected on a file server.
However, properly managing, administering and configuring these servers is a complex and ever-changing challenge. It requires extensive knowledge of a variety of disciplines to make sure that your systems are not only running, but running properly and securely. You need experts in industry standard best practices for everything from Windows Active Directory, to remote access to SQL databases, to remote access,
Today, there are a number of ways to accomplish file storage depending on your particular needs. File servers, Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Attached Network (SAN) are among the most prevalent. Which technology is the most appropriate to your particular business needs will depend on a variety of factors ranging from availability demands, redundancy demands, security, budget, architectural restrictions, and so on.
Network File Servers are the most common means of file storage, particularly in the mid-market segment. Most network file servers such as Microsoft Windows Server provide additional functionality such as Domain security, print serving, remote access and others. For many small businesses, this is sufficient with only hard drive capacity needing to be addressed.
For larger companies, or companies with high storage needs or specific software requirements, alternate solutions such as NAS or SAN can be layered into the network to provide additional storage, archiving, and load balancing.
Archer Solutions is well versed in storage needs and can advise you on the best practices for leveraging your existing solutions or implementing additional storage solutions.
