The IT Nerd

By Janet Giesen, VP of Metallic Operations and Go to Market, Commvault
We understand the challenge you, the IT community, is currently facing with the global health crisis and resulting changes in how we work. Now, almost overnight, you likely need to support a workforce that has become largely remote. You may find yourself needing to support remote operations and infrastructure while keeping your employees safe, your business running, and employees’ laptop data protected. And, you need to do this now.

At Commvault, we know that our services can help you keep remote workers’ data safe in this extraordinary time, and we are prepared to do it free of charge, supported by our partnership with Microsoft Azure. That is why we are making instant access to Commvault’s SaaS offering: Metallic™ Endpoint Backup and Recovery available, at no cost and with unlimited Microsoft Azure backup storage for up to 1,000 endpoint devices, in the U.S. and Canada through September 1, 2020.

This offering comes with no strings attached, no sales conversations, and provides new and existing customers with a simple solution for endpoint data protection, to safeguard laptops and other endpoint data from corruption, deletion, and opportunistic malware and ransomware attacks. These types of protections become even more critical in times like these as they help stave off bad actors looking to exploit the situation.

Leveraging Microsoft Azure Cloud storage with Metallic’s SaaS-based delivery of endpoint protection lets users quickly start protecting their remote workers’ devices without physical interaction or downtime. It can be up and running in minutes and provides sophisticated, enterprise-grade technology that can quickly scale, without impacting employees. It includes geo-location, complementing Azure’s Geo-Replication, and remote wipe functions to securely erase data from lost or stolen laptops. In addition, Metallic’s silent installs and backups require no action from end users, protecting desktop and laptop data without impacting user productivity.

Many companies – small-and-midsized in particular – do not have an existing blueprint to easily protect endpoint data in a secure, scalable way. As you pivot your IT operations to face the current reality, we want to reduce the strain you are already under.

More information and access to the free solution can be found on our Metallic website.

By Matt Tyrer

World Backup Day was this past Sunday, but Canadian businesses can’t afford to be thinking about backup just one day every year. Organizations need to back up and protect their data constantly if they want to avoid a disruption to their operations.

Fortunately, new Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), dynamic indexing, scale-out infrastructure and cloud technologies are increasingly making it possible for IT professionals to simplify backup, even in complex hybrid multicloud environments. From AI-powered self-driving backup that automates data protection care and feeding tasks, to scale-out backup appliances IT pros can just plug-in as their data backup needs expand, there is no reason for any enterprise to work hard at backup any more.

The same system can also provide data activation solutions that streamline data privacy and governance, while expanding the business value of data, so there is no reason for IT professionals to be pulling their hair out over data protection. This isimportant given today’s tight market for storage, backup and other IT talent, in a world where having a complete, simplified data recovery readiness strategy is an absolute necessity.

Ensuring the right data protection technology is in place is only half the battle. IT professionals also need to plan and set Service Levels (SLAs) and ensure those SLAs are being met.

To make sure protection expectations equal reality, they should follow these three key backup commandments:

• If you don’t know what it is, back it up.
• If you don’t know if you’ll need it, back it up.
• If you know what it is and understand its value to you and/or your business, back it up.

Backing up growing amounts of data from an ever-increasing number of clouds and other infrastructure might seem complex and intimidating, but today’s data management and protection technologies can make it easier than many IT professionals think.

Matt Tyrer is senior manager, solutions marketing – Americas for Commvault

Here are some predictions from Ottawa-based Matt Tyrer, Commvault’s senior manager, solutions marketing, Americas, and Don Foster, Commvault’s senior director of worldwide solutions marketing. Matt and Don believe that in the year ahead regulations and business priorities will force companies to improve their data management practices and ensure their most important information is both protected and visible to them no matter where it resides.

Privacy-first Becomes a Priority: As government agencies increasingly cite enterprises for non-compliance with the European Union’s GDPR and other strict data privacy regulations, and other governments implement new data privacy regulations, enterprises will increasingly adopt a “Privacy First” approach to data management. We’ve seen this discussion quite a bit in the Waterfront Toronto / Sidewalk Labs (smart cities) project where the push for “privacy by design” has come to the forefront. Canada recently expanded its own data privacy act (PIPEDA) to include much more stringent requirements around record keeping for data breaches and notifications of those incidents to the public. However, the challenges enterprises will face as they seek to integrate data privacy best practices into their existing applications, as well as new mobile, IoT and other applications, will be significant. Enterprises will need AI-powered, automated, outcome-driven data management solutions to address these challenges if they hope to implement strong data privacy policies without sacrificing productivity or agility.

2019 will be game-changing for cloud adoption in production IT workloads – globally: Enterprises will continue to pour investment into cloud initiatives, focusing increasingly on technologies and services that enable them to transform the cloud from merely a storage location into a solution that enables new, more agile ways of working. Technology providers will increasingly move to deliver this agility by offering native support for multiple cloud providers and other powerful cloud tools that equip enterprises with a single interface for efficiently, effectively and responsibly managing applications, workloads and data across both on-premises and cloud environments.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will become a requirement for new solutions for simplified operations: The IT skills gap will require progressive enterprises to implement new, innovative solutions that automate complex operations. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will become key requirements for new IT solutions to help businesses close the skills gap through smarter operations and modern IT solutions. Enterprise software firms will force their strategic vendors to integrate AI and machine learning into their existing offerings to provide a more efficient operating model and a higher level of success for meeting their desired outcomes.

aaS vs. the Cloud : as-a-Service offerings will continue to accelerate and a new battle will be fought for the IT wallet. Cloud vs. aaS or both? On-premises solutions will still be a major part of IT, however IT growth will continue to accelerate in the cloud and through aaS offerings forcing providers and technology vendors alike to reassess their strategies for how they will serve their customers and ultimately help them define and achieve their necessary business and IT outcomes.

Technology skillsets and time gaps will stall digital transformation: Organizations that continue to leverage traditional methods to meet the modern and transformative needs of the changing digital business will run into major obstacles in 2019. Comprehensive IT skillsets that traverse the worlds of traditional IT and the new Hybrid IT will become more rare. New compliance and governance measures together with a growing monetization of malware/ransomware attacks will continue to put pressure on IT organizations and force improved operations in order to successfully meet the needs of the digitally transforming business. Without the consolidation of disconnected point solutions in data management and all areas of IT, digital transformation efforts will stall especially as cloud computing becomes the standard for the growing digital enterprise.

Recovery Readiness metrics will become the newest trend in technology RFP (request for proposal): Technology vendors must be prepared to meet the requirement for recovery readiness – or the speed in which a service, solution, or offering can be properly brought back online in the event of an outage – as a key requirement definition in technology solution RFPs. Business requirements to keep services active and available for their consumers will continue to mature and become part of the outcome purchasing criteria to pass or fail a solution for specific needs. Solution providers will need to prove their ability to meet necessary SLAs and will be judged on the ease and simplicity in which this metric can be met.

The end of swampy data lakes: Over the past decade, as data storage hardware costs plunged and applications proliferated, enterprises frequently collected and stored as much data as they could, often giving little to no thought to what this data was or how valuable it could be to their organization. They typically stored all this data in a repository known as a data lake. Not fully knowing or understanding what is being placed in the data lake, why it is stored, and whether it has proper data integrity will prove untenable and inefficient for mining and insight gathering. The data lake will begin to disappear in favour of technology that can discover, profile and map data where it lives, reducing storage and infrastructure costs while implementing data strategies that can truly provide insights to improve operations, mitigate risks and potentially lead to new business outcomes.

Commvault has announced new customer and partner success stories focused on how Commvault has helped them drive simplification, risk reduction and greater data management efficiencies.

Recently, the company announced simplified product, pricing, and packaging that makes it easier than ever before to buy, implement and sell Commvault solutions. Today, customers are seeing significant benefits from Commvault’s ability to streamline data operations, cut costs, and reduce risks associated with key IT challenges like unplanned downtime, data loss and cybersecurity.

Independent research firm, IDC, recently conducted a random survey across Commvault’s worldwide customer base to provide a third-party confirmation of the benefits that Commvault can deliver to customers. A new IDC White Paper, commissioned by Commvault, “Quantifying the Business Value of Commvault Software: Worldwide Customer Survey Analysis” summarizes the results of the survey and further reinforces how the company is helping customers navigate their complex data management challenges. According to the study, “Commvault customers have been able to simplify operations, keep costs in check, and lower risk by reducing downtime and operational exposure. They have been able to achieve these benefits while also improving recovery capabilities and data coverage. Customers have been able to drive value back to their organizations through productivity gains in IT staff and across the organization. While organizations may look at such savings as an opportunity to improve the corporate bottom line, many Commvault customers are using these freed-up costs and employee hours to become more agile organizations and to focus on more progressive data transformation.”

Commvault is also helping partners enable customers with the capabilities they need to address increased compliance regulations and service level agreements.

More information on how Commvault is enabling customers and partners to address their data management can be found on Commvault.com. With links to a plethora of embedded videos, stats, infographics and more, Commvault.com offers readers an inside perspective into how Commvault customers were able to drive business benefits using Commvault Software. Readers can explore how Commvault’s advances in simplicity, risk reduction and productivity have dramatically helped customers cut costs and increase business value. Visitors to the site will also be able to see how customers are saving on costs, unplanned downtime, and administration, among other benefits. Additionally, Commvault.com will provide color on market drivers and conditions impacting customers today and why these enterprises are choosing Commvault’s complete backup and recovery solutions.

For anyone who’s ever lost their files, they know it’s no laughing matter. We all know we need to back up our files, but how many of us really do it? That’s why a few concerned users on reddit got together to create World Backup Day on March 31^st. The independent initiative was created to raise awareness about regular backups and data preservation.

Commvault today announced that its Commvault Data Platform has been selected by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to power its new HPE GreenLake Backup solution. Available today and managed through HPE’s outcome-based flexible IT consumption service, Commvault Software, which is pre-integrated on HPE servers, storage and networking technology, will provide customers with enterprise-class data protection and reliability covering the entire lifecycle of a backup environment.

Through its support of HPE GreenLake Backup, Commvault is simplifying the backup experience for customers by providing the required hardware, software, and services to meet evolving data protection and compliance challenges, tightening resource requirements and ever-expanding data growth. HPE GreenLake Backup is an on-premises deployment but priced like a cloud offering.

Commvault is a leading provider of data management solutions, helping companies worldwide activate their data to drive more value and business insight and to transform modern data environments. With solutions and services delivered directly and through a worldwide network of partners and service providers, Commvault solutions comprise one of the industry’s leading portfolios in data protection and recovery, cloud, virtualization, archive, file sync and share. Commvault has earned accolades from customers and third-party influencers for its technology vision, innovation and execution as an independent and trusted expert. Without the distraction of a hardware business or other business agenda, Commvault’s sole focus on data management has led to adoption by companies of all sizes, in all industries, and for solutions deployed on-premises, across mobile platforms, to and from the cloud, and provided as-a-service. Visit www.commvault.com for more info. 

• The Importance of Data – More than 50 per cent of respondents say “better data collection and management” and “new tools to analyze increasingly sophisticated data” are essential to the future success of their business.
• Lack of Access to Data – More than 60 per cent of respondents, including IT executives and IT personnel, think they have access to less than half of their organizations’ data.
• Perception Gap – While 41 per cent of executives believe their organizations understand and are prepared for innovation (already a surprisingly low number) only 29 per cent of IT personnel believe the same. Further, over a third of IT personnel think executives would feel concerned, anxious or panicked if they knew more about their IT department, while another 16 per cent said they’d be unhappy, angry or disgusted.
• Lack of Bandwidth – Most IT executives prioritize day-to-day operations over innovation – and IT personnel follow their lead.
• Lack of Skillsets – More than 50 per cent of IT personnel believe their roles will change radically and they will need to acquire new skills to stay relevant.
• Lack of Technology – More than two-thirds of respondents believe their organizations are not prepared for migrating data to the cloud, protecting that data, or bringing together all data in the company.
• Lack of Commitment to Putting Vision into Practice – More than 40 per cent of companies don’t yet have a formal, proactive plan for digital transformation.