Much like money, data now is a lot better than data tomorrow. Getting information into the right hands at speed is vital for modern business, but there’s a catch. Security demands controls and safeguards that slow down data. Both security and availability are vital. How does a business solve that problem?

“Data keeps coming and keeps coming, and it’s almost never ending,” said Tahir Ali (pictured, right), director of enterprise technology at City of Hope. To deal with all of this data, City of Hope chose IBM storage solutions for its private cloud in 2015.

Ali and Bina Hallman (pictured, left), vice president of software-defined storage solutions at IBM Corp., spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile live-streaming studio, during the IBM InterConnect 2017 conference in Las Vegas, NV. (*Disclosure below.)

The discussion centered on the need for speed, security and efficiencies in data use.

The new drivers behind the data center

The City of Hope center is one of the few comprehensive cancer centers in the nation, with a shared focus on other life-threatening illnesses. Ali’s role meant looking into all new applications and technologies to proof the organization’s background and security — and how well those things implement in the center’s environment.

From a tech perspective, the City of Hope runs its infrastructure mainly in-house, but it is starting to migrate to the cloud. It is seeing a huge increase in the data they deal with, not just with more general information, but more data per patient.

“As things progress, more will go to the cloud, but for a medical center, security is everything. We have to be very careful about where our data sits,” Ali said.

Security is a foremost concern in the medical field. Patient information must be protected. Together with the data flood, that means more data, more data in motion, and the security to keep it safe, all at once. This is a tall order, Ali explained.

Hallman furthered this point. As IBM listens to what clients want, including City of Hope, security is definitely a key factor, she mentioned. Industry-specific standards and compliance issues strengthen that need. IBM is working with clients to give them the tools they need to secure data both on-premise and in motion.

That data must also be instantly available. In the medical field, slow data is dangerous. Ali mentioned the organization is solving this issue with a hybrid system using flash up-front. Rendering and writes happen on the flash, while huge amounts of data live behind the scenes where users don’t see it.

“Everything lands so fast it looks like it’s local,” Ali said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM InterConnect 2017. (*Disclosure: SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE is a media partner at InterConnect. Neither IBM nor other conference sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE