Keeping data secure, tracking who uses it and managing it in a way that maintains backup windows and keeps information available to customers -- especially after an interruption in service or a disaster -- are among the top issues for IT executives, according to users who took part in a panel discussion yesterday at Storage Networking World.

One of the major pain points raised by users at the conference, which ends Thursday, is around managing hundreds of terabytes to petabytes of data in a way that protects it from outside attacks and keeps it from being compromised or lost during transport.

Ralph Barber, CIO at law firm Holland & Knight LLP in Tampa, Fla., said Hurricane Wilma this week knocked out several branch offices of his law firm, which often deals with electronic discovery cases in conjunction with regulatory requirements or litigation. Holland & Knight has about 450 servers and two storage-area networks that support about 3,000 users.

Barber replicates data between his two data centers -- one in Tampa, the other in Denver -- for disaster recovery. But the digital tape he also uses to transport information between offices did not help restore systems quickly enough after Wilma hit the state on Monday.

"Our challenges have been putting together a suite of services that will allow for disaster recovery and business continuity," he said. "This morning [Wednesday], the Miami office and the West Palm Beach office [are] down. Fort Lauderdale just came back up about 10 minutes ago."