A couple of weeks ago, I boarded a flight out of Philadelphia on my way to Accunet’s Atlanta office. Poor weather in Philly had created a bit of a fiasco, but an hour after being announced as 73rd in line for take-off we were aloft. As we made our way south, the captain came on a couple of times to update us on our progress, sensitive to the fact that some of the passengers needed to make connections at Hartsfield to such faraway places as Oslo and Tel Aviv. Unfortunately the news was not much better once back on the ground; the scheduling mishap had left us without a parking space and meant another 20 minutes on the tarmac waiting for an open gate.
Needless to say, the level of collective angst amongst the passengers was increasing rapidly. I had no time constraints whatsoever, as my objective for the evening was nothing more than getting to a rental car and making my way 20 miles or so to my hotel; nonetheless, I was more than ready to be off of this particular flight. That got me thinking about my fellow travelers, and that almost every one of them was likely under more pressure than I to deplane. For those looking to make connections to Europe and beyond, every minute translated into a probability of an unscheduled night in Atlanta, time lost on expensive vacations, family or business events missed – for the airline, these passengers were critical assets.
It is an interesting exercise to read about the ergonomic analysis that the airline industry has performed in an effort to determine the best way to load a plane. Regardless of the fact that you be inclined might argue that the reverse pyramid method is better than a rotating zone, one inescapable conclusion is that the plane is not going to move until everyone is in a seat and everything brought on board is stowed with at least a passing wave to safety. And as we have all seen, no loading plan can remain pristine when airlines must tip their hats to frequent flyers, people who need extra help, small children whose parents are bringing them so that they can board sooner, people with mismatched socks, etc. In the end, the boarding process simply represents the confluence of 100-odd lives to share a relatively brief common experience, and any efficiencies gained are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. But what about the deplaning process? Clearly far less science has been applied to that end of the transaction, as all airlines seem resigned to the Free-for-All model – the fastest, least-burdened, rudest people almost always get to leave first.
So lets’ go back to my flight to Atlanta, and find something relevant here aside from a rant on airline processes and human nature (despite both being such easy targets). There are people on the plane for whom minutes mean the continuation of their journeys or significant upheaval, which could impact the airline in hard or soft dollars. There is a group for whom any more inconvenience could induce them to choose another airline for their next trip. There are those who are aggravated, but will withstand whatever delay remains. And within each of these groups are the frequent or infrequent flyer groups of which the airline wants so desperately to keep track. The problem is that the airline has no idea where any of these groups are positioned in their aircraft.
So imagine a system that allowed the airline to make those distinctions and to allow passengers to move in alignment with the criticality of their circumstance. The cabin lights dim, and then a few seats at a time are lit and those passengers are free to leave. The frequent flyer heading to Oslo makes her flight; the family trying to get to Tel Aviv for a relative’s 100th birthday makes the party; those who need a good night sleep before an early morning meeting get it; and people like me who on this trip have no constraints wait our turn. The airline maximizes its handling of its critical assets, and those assets function within the system in accordance with their priority.
I see analogies in our clients’ efforts to retain, categorize, and protect the critical data assets that define their businesses. A lot of resources are expended on getting the passengers onto the plane and into the right seats – faster networks, converged server populations, higher-performance disk structures. Where things get challenging is when it comes time to differentiate that data, be it for the purpose of archiving, managing, or protecting it.
The protection decision may be the most challenging, as it is the hardest to modify after-the-fact. If an organization archives data incorrectly or inefficiently there could certainly be some opportunity costs, but an analysis of the data can often point the way to more effectual and economic ways to administer things moving forward; if instead it mischaracterizes data and lets important data out the door it may prove too late to recover from the loss of intellectual property or sensitive customer information.
Chances are you are doing things to protect data as it moves through the network, hopefully have ways to at least see that data should it try to leave your network, and have probably identified your endpoints - mobile and otherwise – as danger spots. But what about data at rest? Successfully characterizing and protecting that information helps not only with security while the data sits in its natural habitat, but puts organizations at an advantage when that data starts to move and must be monitored and controlled.
Here at Accunet we are involved with our clients’ efforts in this area every day, and we bring to the table insight and experience with a wide range of technologies and solutions. We would be happy to share that experience with you, and help your organization tackle this challenge.