In this episode, we dive into the world of unstructured data. We look at exactly what it is, the best way to store it, and the challenges we face when it comes to security and recovery. Andy Hardy, EMEA region vice president of cloud storage company, Nasuni, and Dylan Foster-Edwards, Softcat’s head of the office of the chief technologists join host Michael Bird to look at what the future holds for unstructured data.

Unstructured data is information that users can edit, use and save. Users can decide on file names, how they organise them and how they access them. This is different to structured data, where the software decides where the information goes.
The amount of unstructured data we store is growing exponentially, accounting for 80% of enterprise file data. To relieve pressure on physical storage space, there are three options for managing your unstructured data.
The first option is a fully on-premise, dedicated solution, the second is a hybrid approach of on-premise and cloud, and the third is a 100% cloud-based solution.
These options are suitable for different areas of industry, and there are different benefits for each. It’s important to look at what might work best for you and your industry and objectives.
Moving unstructured data into the cloud opens up the ability to collaborate, worldwide. Future cloud-based file systems will vastly reduce cost and risk, whilst improving user efficiency.
The need to recover data will never go away, but cloud-based storage gives you a rapid way of accessing previous versions, without having to store secondary backups.