Synology Simplifies Data Management with Cost-Effective Server Backups and Network-Attached Storage Solutions

TL; DR: As workers continue to move away from centralized offices, IT admins need more effective tools to manage sensitive data. Synology makes network-attached storage (NAS) and server backup solutions accessible to remote workers. Synology offers a wide range of NAS products that run on its easy-to-deploy operating system, DiskStation Manager (DSM), and meet a wide variety of storage and backup needs. Tech enthusiasts and enterprise companies alike are rethinking data management, and Synology is a reliable, secure, and cost-effective solution.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is on a mission to reassert global humanitarian values. As a worldwide entity, UNESCO understood the need to protect its valuable servers at its headquarters in Paris while standardizing its IT solutions throughout its offices. The organization wanted a secure, easy-to-deploy, and reliable solution.

Many of its offices worldwide have low-bandwidth internet connections, so it can take a long time to access files from its headquarters. UNESCO needed a system that could store the virtual machines on local networks for redundancy purposes and simplify server backups.

UNESCO chose Synology to create a backup and data recovery system that solved all of its challenges. One of its significant selling points was the Rackstation server, which is more cost-efficient than competitor offerings. Synology’s operating system, DiskStation Manager (DSM), also helped UNESCO manage its data reliably and securely from anywhere in the world.

“Our operating system allows users and IT administrators to manage their data in a central location, and this makes the lives of IT administrators much easier,” said Steph Clayton, Synology Marketing Manager. “Even with scattered offices, they can log in from one device and manage that data that’s on all of those scattered devices.”

Synology develops software and hardware products that intelligently and efficiently manage data and backups. When Synology launched more than two decades ago, cloud storage wasn’t a mainstream option, and it mostly sold NAS products to home users. As the world of data management has evolved, so has the company’s product line.

Synology now offers unified solutions for home users, SMBs, and enterprises. Its NAS hardware solutions range from two bays to 12 or more that can store up to petabytes of data.

“The goal of our founders was to make NAS storage and backup technologies more accessible to more people — beyond IT and business,” Steph said.

In today’s changing digital world, companies need to remain agile and secure, and part of their strategy should include intelligent and cost-effective data management. Today, IT admins have more widespread security concerns with employees working from home. That means they need to leverage modern solutions that include a wider service area.

Companies have the most control over a data solution when they own the hardware, and Synology’s unified solutions provide that level of robust data management.

The best data security software may not be enough to thwart the most recent encryption-based ransomware.

“One of the best ways to defend yourself from ransomware is to have multiple copies of your data,” Steph said. “Our operating system allows users to set up incremental backups so that if they are affected by ransomware, they can roll back to a previous version.”

According to Cybersecurity Ventures, estimates of ransomware damages increased from $325 million to $5 billion from 2015-2017. From 2018 and 2020, ransomware damages went from $8 billion to $20 billion. In just five years, damages have increased by more than 6,000%.

“COVID-19 was the challenge for 2020, and it changed the way that businesses operate. Ransomware has grown as employees are working from home on less secure networks,” Steph said. “And working from home has created challenges for businesses that still keep centralized data. There is still sensitive data that businesses don’t want to lose, and it needs to be properly backed up.”

It’s no longer optional. Modern businesses need a holistic security strategy, and incremental multiversion backups round out a robust security plan. Even if a company is willing to pay an attacker to gain access to its data, many cybercriminals don’t plan to give it back, so smart companies secure the data themselves.

With multiversion backup and Synology’s easy-to-deploy operating system, companies can keep the money and get their systems back up and running quickly at the first sign of a breach.

Employees must download a file they access over a network before they use it. That can often waste precious working time when dealing with large files. Downloading gigabytes of information can slow down workflow even with the fastest internet speeds. However, in locations that suffer from spotty network connections, work can become impossible without local access to files.

“Employees still need to collaborate from home and share large files, and, often, they are limited by their home network,” Steph said. “So home users are waiting for downloads and saturating their bandwidth.”

By having large, recently accessed files available on a local drive, employees save time and money by continuing to work instead of constantly uploading and downloading over the internet.

Many companies have rushed into cloud storage solutions without addressing the wasted time and energy, not to mention the loss of control and safety, that may entail.

Synology offers fast cloud-storage options, but it also provides a more effective option. Its C2 hybrid cloud service stores recently accessed items on a local server and the cloud.

That gives users the best of both worlds. Large unused files can stay stored on the cloud and accessed when necessary, and files that they work on often are readily available without the need to wait for a download. Not only does the process save companies time and money, but the files are also better protected from cyberthreats.

Synology helps IT departments accomplish more as employees increasingly shift to remote work — and it accomplishes that at a reasonable price point. Every company needs a data management solution that’s safe, easy to use, and reliable, but they also want it to impact profit as little as possible.

Synology stands out from the competition by offering the best value for its price while giving businesses control over how they scale up.

“The big goal of Synology is to give businesses a backup and disaster recovery solution that’s cost-effective,” Steph said. “All of our packages are license-free, and we have options for a wide range of customers, allowing them to scale up as they grow.”

Synology offers simple-to-use software with the most up-to-date hardware and has built a suite of products that complement each other well. Synology is in control of the software and the hardware in a single unified solution to keep costs low and ensure all of its clients have access to robust data management.

“I used to be a photographer, so I speak with a lot of photographers. I was in Haiti in 2010 after the earthquake, and I lost both of my external hard drives with all of my work on them,” Steph said. “That was my wake-up call. To me, it’s essential to educate people about the importance of backing up their data.”

Businesses and IT admins, and also photographers, videographers, and musicians, turn to Synology to store their most sensitive and vital data. The company, whose scalable products benefit growing companies, offers solutions for individual users.