In a recent blog post, which I encourage you to check out here, Audie Hittle, Chief Technology Officer, EMC Isilon, shares three key areas that organizations should be thinking about when it comes to data protection strategies. Below I’ve highlighted these three ideas:
1) Encryption: Hittle noted that smart agencies will make sure that information is protected from the data center all the way to mobile phones. And more importantly, they’ll be sure to use the correct encryption approach to address a specific requirement, rather than more general solutions.
2) Disaster Recovery: Disasters, emergencies, and mistakes happen – sometimes out of our control, but nonetheless causing outages. To comply with HIPAA and HITECH regulations, organizations must be able to fully recover these outages within a few hours though — to avoid penalty. According to Hittle, virtualizing IT environments is the answer as it allows mission-critical applications to constantly run.
3) Backup: With sensitive (and a lot) of data, comes the need to back it up. Hittle stressed the importance of a a disk-based, centralized backup system for better control of your data and a greater chance of meeting regulatory requirements.
Obviously, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to protecting health data (or all data). But Hittle’s list is a good start. Be sure to check out his blog here for more information on analytics best practices, health data, and how EMC can help your agency keep its information safe.
For even more information, check out EMC’s page on GovLoop.
