The healthcare industry can be difficult for data management because of the myriad regulatory and privacy requirements surrounding patient information. It’s often risk-averse, full of isolated data silos and bureaucratic.

However, Pure Storage Inc. has developed a niche business that provides healthcare clients with data storage support that is actually resulting in the return of critical records to a more centralized structure. They are doing it through snapshots, point-in-time captures of data that can be used for major backups.

“Snapshots are like gym memberships. Everybody has access to one, but very few actually use them,” said Sathya Sankaran (pictured, left), director of sales engineering and services at Catalogic Software Inc.

Sankaran, who was joined by Vik Nagjee (pictured, right), vice president and chief technology officer of healthcare and life sciences at Pure Storage, appeared on the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, and answered questions from hosts Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu) during the Pure//Accelerate event in San Francisco, California. They discussed the role that snapshots are playing to meet the data management needs of the healthcare industry and how their technology is helping system security as well. (* Disclosure below.)

Snapshots minimize necessary copies

Pure Storage’s snapshot technology can create a copy of large nodes, such as SAP SE Hana (an in-memory, column-oriented, relational database management system), in milliseconds. This is important in the healthcare space because while the records contain data that can be important or even life-saving, medical groups also don’t want a lot of cumbersome copies just lying around.

“These are air-gapped copies you can bring back when they are relevant,” Nagjee said. “You really want to have peace of mind.”

Having the data snapshotted and managed in storage also provides a key level of security, Nagjee pointed out. If a healthcare organization fell victim to a ransomware attack, the snapshot would restore a production environment to any previous point in time.

“We’re starting to see the notion of data value coming to healthcare. And the way to accomplish that is by putting data to work,” Nagjee concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of Pure //Accelerate 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Pure //Accelerate 2017. Neither Pure Storage Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE