Archive for Retrospect

2023 Tech Industry Predictions

Posted in Commentary with tags , , , , on December 10, 2022 by itnerd

In 2022, the industry witnessed a plethora of events and trends. The incessant ransomware and other malware attacks that plagued organizations globally were certainly among those that made headlines. From Twitter to Uber to student loan servicer Nelnet Servicing, over 4,100 publicly disclosed data breaches occurred in 2022 which led to more than 22 billion records being exposed.

Regarding the most notable events and trends to watch for in 2023, executives from Datadobi, DH2i, Folio Photonics, Retrospect and StorCentric had this to say: 

Carl D’Halluin, CTO, Datadobi

“Organizations will be forced to look for new approaches to manage unstructured data growth in 2023. Many have already noticed that the pace of unstructured data growth is snowballing exponentially faster than it has in the past. This leads to increased costs, as companies have to buy more storage, and the introduction of risk, as the organization has less knowledge about the data as it ages in its network. Organizations need new solutions to minimize the financial impact and risk their business faces.

Furthermore, much of this unstructured data is stored in network-attached storage (NAS). This is because many applications haven’t yet been redeveloped to leverage object storage. So, much of an organization’s unstructured data will continue to be stored on-premises in 2023. Because of this, public cloud providers will form more relationships with traditional on-premises NAS vendors. They will offer branded, cloud-based, managed file services. These services will benefit customers because they have a simple “on-ramp,” they preserve pre-existing documentation and processes, and they take care of the underlying hardware and operating environment for the customer.”

Steve Leeper, Vice President of Product Marketing, Datadobi

“In 2023, businesses are going to have to prioritize environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies to gain a competitive advantage. A recent PwC report found that over 80% of individuals are more likely to buy or work for an organization that stands for ESG best practices. And as of this year, only a little more than half of companies have an ESG plan in place or are actively planning for one. 

Unstructured data plays a pivotal role in the success of an organization’s ESG policies. A holistic approach to reducing carbon footprint should bring unstructured data management into the conversation. When done with the right solutions, unstructured data management can enable organizations to move away from legacy models where data is stored in a digital ‘landfill.’ In these environments, data takes up money, space, and precious resources but gives very little in return. Organizations should be able to monitor their key ESG indicators and take actions on unstructured data to achieve their targets by moving data to the cloud or less polluting storage, deleting redundant, obsolete, or trivial (ROT) or orphaned data, enabling consolidation, reuse, and earlier shutdown of hardware. By doing so, IT leaders get a win-win of an effective approach to unstructured data management that also delivers on ESG objectives.” 

Don Boxley, CEO and Co-Founder, DH2i

“In 2023, I predict that SDP will finally pull-ahead of VPNs as the dominant technology for remotely connecting people and devices. One of the most critical drivers here will be awareness and acceptance. More and more IT professionals are already using it successfully to connect to cloud or on-premises applications from wherever they are – the airport to the home office to the local coffee shop, and they are talking about it.

Likewise, VPNs will slip in popularity as there is now a viable solution that can help IT professionals to overcome its inherent challenges. VPNs are buggy and the performance has always been spotty. VPNs are simply not reliable from a performance standpoint. And of course, the security issues are there, because of the way it is designed – inherent in the architecture. It allows for fast and easy lateral network attacks from bad actors. Previously, a relatively small portion of the workforce was dependent on it. So, the problems were more self-contained. However, over the past few years, with more and more people and organizations dependent on it, the risks have multiplied significantly.

In 2023, I also predict that developers will demand solutions that enable highly available cloud-native SQL Server availability groups (AGs) in containers, including support for Kubernetes (K8s) clusters – across mixed environments and across any type of infrastructure or cloud.

Kubernetes alone struggles to meet SQL Server production database HA requirements due to its prolonged pod/node-level HA failover of 2-10 minutes. What is required is a solution that can solve this problem by enabling highly available AG support in Kubernetes, which is an essential component to using stateful containers in production. The solution(s) must seamlessly complement K8s’ pod/node-level cluster HA, allowing Microsoft SQL Server users to confidently deploy HA SQL Server containers in production while meeting database HA requirements. Bottom-line, the ideal solution must combine with Azure Kubernetes Services and SQL Server to create a single, holistic solution for containerized SQL Server.”

Steve Santamaria, CEO, Folio Photonics

“Data Storage will take on global warming. As the world continues to strive toward Net Zero, additional industries will come under the microscope. One industry heavily influenced by this will be the data storage industry. By 2025, data centers will consume >3% of the world’s electricity and storage can make up anywhere from 10-30% of a data center’s overall energy consumption. When there is a specific industry accounting for >1% of global electricity consumption, people start to take notice and ask what can be done to lessen the power burden. This will create an industry-wide push toward sustainable storage technologies that are more energy-efficient than legacy hardware.

This sustainability push comes at an intriguing time in the industry as well. We have recently seen newer SSDs actually use more energy than HDDs, which has not been the case until now. HDDs will continue to push toward consuming less energy, but their technology will continue to struggle in terms of power consumption per TB relative to others. For meaningful sustainability advancements to be made with HDD technology, the idle energy consumption will need to be lowered significantly. Tape will continue to show that it is the most energy-efficient product on the market, but the tight window on operating and storage conditions will be a looming cloud on their sustainability narrative. For meaningful sustainability advancements to be made with tape technology, their operating conditions will need to be made significantly wider.

Next, cold storage will steal the spotlight. There has always been considerable interest in hot storage, but the drive to $0/TB has started increasing momentum toward the cold storage segment. As new applications that generate and analyze massive amounts of data are developed, there will be an overwhelming interest in developing new cold storage strategies to keep data lakes cost-efficient, energy-efficient, and secure for long periods of time. We have already seen an increase in extremely high-capacity HDD, optical, and tape technologies being researched in many labs across the globe. It will be a growing challenge to keep cold storage accessible while keeping it cost-efficient. This will create an influx of investment in current technologies paired with additional investment in new technologies that have the potential to disrupt this emerging industry. We have seen this trend start to begin in 2022 as there were high-capacity HDDs released, new tape libraries announced, and rising interest in new types of optical storage media and DNA storage.

And in 2023, immutable storage will becomes increasingly commonplace. It is no secret that data has become a strategic asset. It is directly or indirectly tied to profitability for nearly every organization in the world today. Unfortunately, this means it’s becoming a high-value target for cybercriminals. The ever-growing threat of malicious actors will drive up demand for immutable storage. Not only will immutable snapshots be in high demand, but immutable media will find itself being implemented in storage architectures across every industry.

Last but not least, while I believe these trends to be those with the most momentum in the upcoming year, I do not believe they are the only ones we will see. New, emerging business models such as Hardware-as-a-service will grow in popularity and storage-as-a-service providers should see an uptick in market share as well. Lastly, the fragile dynamics of the industry will come under fire even more so in the upcoming year as the threat of a vertical market failure continues to rise. All of these trends, amongst others, will create an interesting upcoming year for the storage industry.”

Brian Dunagan, Vice President of Engineering, Retrospect:

“Freedom and flexibility will become the mantra of virtually every data management professional in the coming year. In particular, data management professionals will seek data mobility solutions that are cloud-enabled and support data migration, data replication and data synchronization across mixed environments including disk, tape and cloud to maximize ROI by eliminating data silos. We will likewise see an uptick in solutions that support vendor-agnostic file replication and synchronization, are easily deployed and managed on non-proprietary servers and can transfer millions of files simultaneously – protecting data in transit to/from the cloud with SSL encryption.

Ransomware will remain a huge and relentlessly growing global threat, to high profile targets and to smaller SMBs and individuals as well. There are likely a few reasons for this continuing trend. Certainly, one is that today’s ransomware is attacking widely, rapidly, aggressively, and randomly – especially with ransomware as a service (RaaS) becoming increasingly prevalent, looking for any possible weakness in defense. The second is that SMBs do not typically have the technology or manpower budget as their enterprise counterparts.

While a strong security defense is indispensable, we will see that next year security leaders will ensure additional measures are taken. Their next step will be enabling the ability to detect anomalies as early as possible in order to remediate affected resources. Large enterprises, SMBs and individuals alike will need a backup target that allows them to lock backups for a designated time period. Many of the major cloud providers now support object locking, also referred to as Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) storage or immutable storage. Users will leverage the ability to mark objects as locked for a designated period of time, and in doing so prevent them from being deleted or altered by any user – internal or external.”

Surya Varanasi, CTO, StorCentric:

“The ransomware threat will continue to grow and become increasingly aggressive – not just from a commercial standpoint, but from a nation-state warfare perspective as well. Verizon’s 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report, reminded us how this past year illustrated, “… how one key supply chain incident can lead to wide ranging consequences. Compromising the right partner is a force multiplier for threat actors. Unlike a financially motivated actor, nation-state threat actors may skip the breach altogether, and opt to simply keep the access to leverage at a later time.” For this reason, channel solutions providers and end users will prioritize data storage solutions that can deliver the most reliable, real-world proven protection and security. Features such as lockdown mode, file fingerprinting, asset serialization, metadata authentication, private blockchain and robust data verification algorithms, will transition from nice-to-have, to must-have, while immutability will become a ubiquitous data storage feature. Solutions that do not offer these attributes and more won’t come even close to making it onto any organization’s short-list.

Consumer attitudes towards online security and privacy will also heighten. A key driver here will be that while enterprises getting hacked and hit by ransomware continue to make the headlines, cybercriminals have begun to hit not just enterprise businesses with deep pockets, but SMBs and individuals. SMBs and individuals/consumers are actually far more vulnerable to successful attacks as they do not have the level of protection that larger enterprises have the budgets to employ. As work from home (WFH) and work from anywhere (WFA) remain the paradigm for many across the data/analytics field, they will require data protection and security solutions that can also protect them wherever they are.

In the coming year, the ideal cybercrime defense will be a layered defense that starts with a powerful password, and continues with Unbreakable Backup. As mentioned, backup has become today’s cyber criminals’ first target via ransomware and other malware. An Unbreakable Backup solution however can provide users with two of the most difficult hurdles for cyber criminals to overcome – immutable snapshots and object locking. Immutable snapshots are by default, write-once read-many (WORM) but in the coming year, sophisticated yet easy to manage features like encryption where the encryption keys are located in an entirely different location than the data backup copy(ies) will become standard. And then to further fortify the backup and thwart would-be criminals in the coming year we will see users leveraging object locking, so that data cannot be deleted or overwritten for a fixed time period, or even indefinitely.”

Industry Execs Discuss The Threats That Businesses Face During This Shopping Season

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on November 21, 2022 by itnerd

Black Friday kicks-off what has become known as the busiest and most important shopping season of the year. In 2005, Cyber Monday was launched and became the most profitable day for online shopping. And now, Super Saturday – aka, Panic Saturday, taking place this year on Saturday, December 17, has been added as another business-critical “in the black” factor for the majority of retailers. 

Whether you are a brick and mortar or online retailer, system downtime and/or a data breach presents a very significant problem with far reaching consequences, however during this time of year the ramifications could be catastrophic.  

On this subject, the following StorCentric, Retrospect and DH2i executives had this to say.

Surya Varanasi, CTO, StorCentric:   

“While retailers are well aware of the importance of uptime and data security, many continue to struggle, particularly during high-stakes shopping periods. However, with inflation hitting its highest level since 1982, and a recession looming, retailers must ensure they are in an ideal position to meet customer demand, service expectations and capitalize on a time when consumers may be open to loosening their purse strings.

This is a time when data backup and data security best practices are critical. Today, many backup and security processes have become highly automated. But, as ransomware and other malware attacks continue to increase in severity and sophistication, it is clear that proper cyber hygiene must include protecting backed up data by making it immutable and by eliminating any way that data can be deleted or corrupted. 

An Unbreakable Backup does exactly that by creating an immutable, object-locked format, and then takes it a step further by storing the admin keys in another location entirely for added protection. Additional best practices should include deploying a solution that includes policy-driven data integrity checks that can scrub the data for faults, and auto-heals without any user intervention. In addition, high availability is best ensured with dual controllers and RAID-based protection that can provide uninterrupted data access in the event of a cyber attack from any internal or external bad actors, as well as a simple component failure. In this manner, recovery of data will also be faster because RAID-protected disk arrays are able to read faster than they can write. With an Unbreakable Backup solution that encompasses these capabilities, retailers can ease their worry about their ability to recover — and redirect their time and attention to activities that more directly impact maximizing opportunities at this time of year, and all year long.” 

Brian Dunagan, Vice President of Engineering, Retrospect

“The cost of downtime can be staggering, especially at this time of year, and the impact on a retailer’s business reaches far beyond the immediate loss in sales. While malicious or even careless employee actions can also present downtime and data loss risks, external bad actors–ransomware and other malware–are the most common threats. Retail IT professionals are most concerned about their ability to recover from a successful ransomware attack.

My advice to them is this. It is a given that you must deploy data security and high availability (HA) solutions. A simple 3-2-1 backup strategy is also essential (i.e., always have at least three copies of data; two onsite on different media, and one in an offsite location). However, as a successful cyberattack is likely just around the corner, you must be able to detect ransomware as early as possible to stop the threat and ensure your ability to remediate and recover. A backup solution that includes anomaly detection to identify changes in an environment that warrants the attention of IT is a must. Administrators must be able to tailor anomaly detection to their business’s specific systems and workflows, with capabilities such as customizable filtering and thresholds for each of their backup policies. And, those anomalies must be immediately reported to management, as well as aggregated for future ML/analyzing purposes.

Despite the increasing threat of cyberattacks and data breaches, retailers can prevail by staying vigilant and proactively enacting processes and deploying today’s innovative technology solutions; and in doing so, not only protect themselves but also their customers.” 

Don Boxley, CEO and Co-Founder, DH2i:

“As the retail world continues to experience dramatic transformation – some of it temporary, some of which will likely endure – it demands a data access and security solution that can support the way it works today, and tomorrow. Like many technologies that preceded them, VPNs were at one time truly cutting-edge unrivaled technology. However, over time as the world’s IT and business climate has progressed, VPNs have remained almost completely unchanged. Consequently, VPNs are now not only unable to keep hackers at bay, but they may also actually make their jobs easier for them.

As we head into what is arguably one of the busiest and most important seasons of the year for retailers, maintaining data access and security is paramount. What is virtually impossible to accomplish with VPNs can now however be achieved with the more modern, innovative and real-world proven software defined perimeter (SDP). 

SDP enables organizations to build a secure software-defined perimeter and use Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) tunnels to seamlessly connect all applications, servers, IoT devices, and users behind any symmetric network address translation (NAT) to any full cone NAT: without having to reconfigure networks or set up complicated and problematic VPNs. By leveraging SDP this holiday shopping season, organizations can ensure safe, fast and easy network and data access; while slamming the door on any potential cybercriminals or Grinch.”

September Is National Insider Threats Awareness Month

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on September 2, 2022 by itnerd

September is National Insider Threat Awareness Month. And if you pay a visit to the The Office of the Director of National Intelligence website, you’ll see this message:

The Acting Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center has issued his letter of endorsement for the fourth annual National Insider Threat Awareness Month in September 2022.  Please join us during September to emphasize the importance of safeguarding our nation by detecting, deterring, and mitigating insider threats.  If you would like to increase awareness in your workforce, visit the National Insider Threat Awareness Month website to learn more about the serious risks posed by insider threats and how to recognize and report anomalous/threatening activities to enable early intervention. The web page of the National Insider Threat Task Force also has resources available.

Keep in mind that an insider threat is someone who will use her/his authorized access, wittingly or unwittingly, to do harm to the security of the United States (as well as any other country or company). This threat can include damage to the United States through espionage, terrorism, unauthorized disclosure of national security information, or through the loss or degradation of departmental resources or capabilities.

I have commentary from three industry sources on National Insider Threat Awareness Month.

Don Boxley, CEO and Co-Founder, DH2i (www.dh2i.com): 

“Over the past couple of years, work from home (WFH) has morphed into work from anywhere (WFA). While few would argue the horrors of the pandemic, WFA could be viewed as one small positive. Organizations and their employees have learned that we can work from virtually anywhere given the right circumstances. And by circumstances, I mean, support from leadership and the right technology.

Unfortunately, the WFA paradigm has also led to an exponential increase in cybersecurity attacks – not just from external cyber criminals but from malicious internal bad actors as well. And what makes the internal threat even more dangerous is that many of these bad actors are armed with knowledge of confidential internal security procedures, which adds to their ability to cause serious harm to your organization.

We saw quite a bit of this at the start of the pandemic when people were first sent home virtually overnight to work. Many organizations were forced to depend upon their virtual private networks (VPNs) for network access and security and then learned the hard way that VPNs were not up to the task. It became clear that VPNs simply were not designed or intended for the way we work today. Both external and internal bad actors could, were and are still exploiting inherent vulnerabilities in VPNs. Instead, forward looking IT organizations have discovered the answer to the VPN dilemma. It is an innovative and highly reliable approach to networking connectivity – the Software Defined Perimeter (SDP). This approach enables organizations to build a secure software-defined perimeter and use Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) tunnels to seamlessly connect all applications, servers, IoT devices, and users behind any symmetric network address translation (NAT) to any full cone NAT: without having to reconfigure networks or set up complicated and problematic VPNs. With SDP, organizations can ensure safe, fast and easy network and data access; while slamming the door on potential cybercriminals.”

Surya Varanasi, CTO, StorCentric (www.storcentric.com):

“This September 2022 marks the fourth annual National Insider Threat Awareness month. It aims to shine a spotlight on the critical importance of defending against, detecting and mitigating damages from insider threats. Indeed ransomware and other types of malicious malware attacks are not only perpetrated by external cybercriminals, but internal bad actors as well. And, the expense is not only measured in ransomware payments, but also the almost incalculable cost of operations downtime, lost revenue, legal fees, regulations compliance penalties, a rise in insurance premiums, and/or a loss of customer trust. 

The need to backup data has become ubiquitous. But now, as ransomware and other malware attacks continue to increase in severity and sophistication, we understand the need to protect backed up data by making it immutable and by eliminating any way that data can be deleted or corrupted. 

What is required is an Unbreakable Backup solution that is able to create an immutable, object-locked format, and then takes it a step further by storing the admin keys in another location entirely for added protection. Additionally, the Unbreakable Backup solution should include policy-driven data integrity checks that can scrub the data for faults, and auto-heals without any user intervention. Ideally, it should also deliver high availability with dual controllers and RAID-based protection that can provide data access in the event of component failure. In deployment of such a solution, recovery of data will also be faster because RAID-protected disk arrays are able to read faster than they can write. With an Unbreakable Backup solution that encompasses these capabilities, users can ease their worry about their ability to recover — and redirect their time and attention to activities that more directly impact the organization’s bottom-line objectives.”

Brian Dunagan, Vice President of Engineering, Retrospect, a StorCentric Company (www.retrospect.com): 

“During National Insider Threat Awareness month we are reminded of the multitude of reasons a sound data backup strategy and proven solutions are critical. Given today’s economic and geopolitical climate it is a given that at some point virtually all organizations will suffer a successful cyber-attack be it from internal or external forces. Given this inevitability, it makes sense that the end customers I speak with, whether they are from private, public, or government organizations, are putting an increasing focus on their ability to detect and recover as quickly, cost-effectively and painlessly as possible. 

A backup solution that includes anomaly detection to identify changes in an environment that warrants the attention of IT is a must. Administrators must be able to tailor anomaly detection to their business’s specific systems and workflows, with capabilities such as customizable filtering and thresholds for each of their backup policies. And, those anomalies must be immediately reported to management, as well as aggregated for future ML/analyzing purposes.

Certainly, the next step after detecting the anomaly is providing the ability to recover in the event of a successful ransomware attack. This is best accomplished with an immutable backup copy of data (a.k.a., object locking) which makes certain that the data backup cannot be altered or changed in any way.”

Bob Erdman, Director of Development, Threat Intelligence For HelpSystems 

Insider threats are not only malicious, but many times they are accidental. 

A purposeful user may be upset and want to cause damage to the organization, or they may be motivated by monetary gains (bribes) and disclose information to third parties. They may even be placed there by outside actors looking to gain knowledge of practices, procedures and intellectual property. More and more there are instances of nation states engaging in this industrial espionage.

On the other hand, accidental compromise is also very common. Users fall victim to malicious phishing or BEC scams and expose their credentials or other damaging information about the organization that is then used by malicious actors to gather intelligence and potentially cause damage to the user’s company. This is not only a problem for the employees of the organization but also can be caused by any third party partner, contractor or member of the supply chain that can be used as an initial entry point into the final target’s enterprise.

John Grancarich, EVP, Strategy For HelpSystems 

One click – that’s all it takes for an unsuspecting user to be lured down the path of credential theft. And once the first set of credentials has been compromised, the front door of your organization is wide open, and it won’t stop there. So, take the time to invest in awareness and in training. It turns out that our parents’ advice to us as we were growing up is relevant to security as well: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Tom Huntington, EVP of Technical Solutions For HelpSystems 

When is the greatest threat to an organization’s intellectual property?  It is when that insider decides to move on to their next career advancement and they decide to take along a little intelligence that they deem not harmful but certainly puts the incumbent company’s property at risk to be shared to a competitor or outside threat.  End point security should be able to monitor this activity and provide comprehensive reporting of all the ins and outs of the data.  Did they print, use a USB or email something to their external provider?  What really happened during their exit from the company?  Proper data loss prevention technology should provide the tracking of your data and the prevention of this activity.

Donnie MacColl, Senior Director of Technical Support For HelpSystems 

“It is far better to prevent than to detect and remediate. There are now many factors that may persuade insiders to act as a threat. Financial motives are always attractive, and now with a poor global financial situation and the rising cost of living, simple acts like handing over a password for monetary gain are becoming more attractive to many people who would have never usually considered it. Anybody who has or had privileged access needs to be thought of as a part of the data lifecycle from their first day to their last. Companies are great at giving new employees access (usually too much access) to items they need to perform their role. However, if they move roles, they tend to cumulatively inherit more rights and access rather than close off previous access and start again. Imagine giving a tradesperson a key to your house, but never asking for it back when the job is done! That is what happens when an employee leaves and their access is not fully and immediately removed. This calls for a need for technology such as automated onboarding and offboarding, so no one slips through the cracks.”

Some Thoughts On Women’s Equality Day

Posted in Commentary with tags , on August 26, 2022 by itnerd

Women’s Equality Day is celebrated in the United States on August 26 to commemorate the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex.” Today, we celebrate with gratitude those strong women that came before, and their efforts to ensure a brighter more equitable future for women everywhere. 

I have some thoughts from Samina Subedar, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, StorCentric; and Lindsay Mantzel, Senior Full Stack Developer, Retrospect, a StorCentric Company:

Samina Subedar, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, StorCentric

“Each year on August 26, Women’s Equality Day is celebrated. While a tremendous amount of progress has been made, in the workplace in particular there remains work to be done. For instance, Catalyst reported that women currently hold just 32 (6.4%) of the CEO positions at the S&P 500 companies. Likewise, according to Pew Research, even though women now earn the highest percentage of both undergraduate and advanced degrees, they remain a small percentage of degree earners in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) – areas where women remain underrepresented in the workforce as well.  

Yet, while there remains work to be done, we cannot ignore how far we have come. And, as a woman that has built a successful career in technology, I can personally attest to how fulfilling and rewarding it can be. So on this Women’s Equality Day, I am reflecting on and appreciating all those that encouraged and supported me along the way. The importance of gender parity in the workplace is preceded by equal access to education across the globe, thereby cultivating an environment of gender equality. It is critical that we actively advocate for educational programs that show real world examples of successful women in technology, which can in turn provide inspiring role models. It is also important to champion female-based technology internships and hiring at your organization (not just the right thing to do, diversity optimizes business processes and creates competitive advantage for your company). And, are you a woman in technology? Then, please consider acting as a mentor. There are many organizations around the world focused on such mutually rewarding opportunities.” 

Lindsay Mantzel, Senior Full Stack Developer, Retrospect, a StorCentric Company: 

“Women’s Equality Day is a holiday that evokes optimism when you reflect on the great strides that have been made, while also reminding us that there are opportunities remaining for further improvement. 

I am indeed fortunate to work for a company that greatly values diversity in the workplace. Likewise, from an early age I was encouraged to strive to be the best I could be, and to freely pursue my interests in STEM. 

Are you wondering what you can do to help fan the fires of a girl or woman with an interest in STEM? My advice would be that to start, all you really need is to show a positive attitude! Next, encourage curiosity and focus on the fun of learning something new. You can also highlight successful women in STEM that came before and are still blazing trails. However, most importantly, whether it is STEM or they decide they want to pursue another career path – it’s all good! And remind them, as Dr. Seuss astutely stated, ‘If you get the chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said it would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.’”

Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day 

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on July 29, 2022 by itnerd

 Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day which is now in its 23rd year.

As you may already know, this holiday comes at a time when according to prevailing news reports such as that from CNBC, layoffs have hit a record low, voluntary departures (aka, the Great Resignation or the Big Quit) persist, and the job openings rate continues to soar. Such trends are serving to fortify employee leverage, as employers strive to attract new employees, as well as retain their current workforce, with higher pay, enhanced benefits and other concrete demonstrations of appreciation.

In recognition of this day, I have some thoughts from Don Boxley, CEO and Co-Founder of DH2i (www.dh2i.com), Surya Varanasi, CTO of StorCentric (www.storcentric.com), and Brian Dunagan, Vice President of Engineering, Retrospect, a StorCentric Company (www.retrospect.com): 

Don Boxley, CEO and Co-Founder, DH2i

“There are numerous reasons to appreciate your System Administrator (SysAdmin). For instance, one of the most challenging aspects about working with technology is oftentimes not so much the technology itself, but rather the relationship between the technology and the people who use it. It is our SysAdmins who are invariably responsible for making sure that employees can use technology in an efficient, productive and safe manner.

This could certainly be seen during the start of the pandemic, when people were first sent home virtually overnight to work. Many organizations were forced to depend upon their virtual private networks (VPNs) for network access and security and then learned the hard way that VPNs were not up to the task. Savvy SysAdmins however recognized that VPNs simply were not designed or intended for the way we work today. They saw that external and internal bad actors could and were exploiting inherent vulnerabilities in VPNs. Instead, forward-looking SysAdmins saw there was an answer to the VPN dilemma. It was and still is an innovative and highly reliable approach to networking connectivity – the Software Defined Perimeter (SDP). This approach enables organizations to build a secure software-defined perimeter and use Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) tunnels to seamlessly connect all applications, servers, IoT devices, and users behind any symmetric network address translation (NAT) to any full cone NAT: without having to reconfigure networks or set up complicated and problematic VPNs. With SDP, SysAdmins can ensure safe, fast and easy network and data access.

This is of course just one example of countless reasons to appreciate your System Administrator.

Bottomline, our SysAdmins play a vital role in ensuring our workforce can leverage technology to help our organizations succeed at the agile and accelerated pace business now demands. So, why don’t you show your SysAdmin deserved acknowledgement on System Administrator Appreciation Day, and even better yet – all year long!”

Surya Varanasi, CTO, StorCentric:

“I have long maintained that demonstrating employee appreciation is not only the right thing to do, but a fundamental cornerstone in creating and maintaining competitive advantage. This has never been truer than it is today, in the face of trends like the ‘great resignation’ and as competition for talent continues to escalate across virtually every job market. Prevailing research backs this up – according to the Pew Research Center, among the top three reasons that U.S. workers left a job in 2021 was “felt disrespected at work.” 

System Administrator Appreciation Day provides an ideal opportunity to recognize one of your organization’s greatest assets – its SysAdmins, who are also likely responsible in large part for your organization’s other greatest asset – your data. This responsibility is no easy task, especially given the current global cybercrime climate. Approximately 37% of global organizations said they were the victim of some form of ransomware attack in 2021, according to IDC’s “2021 Ransomware Study.” Likewise, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported 2,084 ransomware complaints from January to July 31, 2021. This is a 62% year-over-year increase.  

However, smart SysAdmins already know that by deploying an advanced Unbreakable Backup solution they can protect their organization’s data via an immutable, object-locked format which then takes it a step further by storing the admin keys in another location entirely for added protection. Other key capabilities SysAdmins use to their advantage are policy-driven data integrity checks that can scrub the data for faults, and auto-heals without any user intervention. In addition, with dual controllers and RAID-based protection SysAdmins can enjoy high availability protection that can provide data access in the event of component failure. Recovery of data is also faster because RAID-protected disk arrays are able to read faster than they can write. With an Unbreakable Backup solution that encompasses these capabilities, SysAdmins can ease their worry about their ability to recover — and redirect their time and attention to activities that more directly impact bottom-line objectives. And consequently, reinforce their immeasurable value to their organization.”

Brian Dunagan, Vice President of Engineering, Retrospect, a StorCentric Company:

“System Administrator Appreciation Day reminds us how important it is to show appreciation for one of our organizations’ most strategic and valuable assets – the SysAdmin. This is especially true today, given the increasing challenges most SysAdmins need to address on a daily basis.

One such issue most SysAdmins are having to deal with is cyberattacks. Ransomware and other malware continues to hamper businesses and government agencies around the world, locking them out of their operational workflows and then demanding exorbitant payments (after which unfortunately, data is oftentimes never unblocked and/or returned). With the advent of RaaS (Ransomware as a Service), these attacks are becoming even more commonplace, targeting an ever-expanding segment of organizations. It is often the SysAdmin that must enlist the tools necessary to mount a defense, as well as detect early signs of intrusion. And, they need to be able to recover quickly and affordably, should they experience a successful attack. Of course the truth is that today, it is not really a question of if an organization will be successfully breached, but more realistically simply a question of when, making this SysAdmin responsibility all the more crucial. When the SysAdmin is at their best, all of this service is taking place rather transparently, which is why System Administrator Appreciation Day is so important.

Creating a culture of appreciation can take time. So, while System Administrator Appreciation Day officially comes once a year, why not start today, commit to the process and recognize and reward your SysAdmins (as well as the rest of your invaluable workforce) on a regular basis!”

Retrospect Announces Retrospect Cloud for Simple Offsite Data Protection

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 21, 2022 by itnerd

 Retrospect™, a StorCentric company, today announced Retrospect Cloud Storage, Retrospect Backup 19, and Retrospect Virtual 2022. With Retrospect Cloud Storage integrated into Retrospect, businesses have a complete ransomware protection and detection solution that encompasses on-premise and cloud protection. Retrospect Cloud Storage is a low-cost, high-availability (HA) cloud storage service, with 13 data centers located around the world. Retrospect Cloud Storage has been one of the most requested features from Retrospect’s customers, combining the simplicity of a single subscription with seamless integration into Retrospect Backup.

Ransomware continues to hamper businesses around the world, locking them out of their business workflows and demanding exorbitant payments. With the availability of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), those attacks will become even more frequent, targeting ever-wider segments of businesses. Organizations need tools to defend themselves, both to protect their data and to detect early signs of intrusion.

With Retrospect Backup 19 and Retrospect Virtual 2022, businesses around the world can now protect their critical infrastructure on Retrospect Cloud Storage, with complete support for immutable backups and anomaly detection, as well as on-premise with Retrospect’s deep support for NAS devices, including the new Nexsan EZ-NAS unit with Retrospect built-in, and tape libraries, including LTO-9 support.

Retrospect Cloud Storage is built on Wasabi Technologies’ Hot Cloud Storage, providing lightning-fast object storage. Retrospect Cloud Storage leverages that foundation to provide advanced data protection features like immutable backups. With Retrospect’s AES-256 at-rest encryption, sensitive data can be backed up to Retrospect Cloud Storage but guaranteed to remain private from the underlying infrastructure provider, including Retrospect, Inc. and Wasabi Technologies. Using Retrospect Cloud Storage and the multi-homed backups with the 3-2-1 backup rule, businesses are fully protected and encrypted from ransomware attacks with on-premise and cloud backups.

Retrospect Backup 19

Also included in Retrospect Backup 19:

  • Backup Comparison: Businesses need to understand not only what is in a backup but what changed between backups. Using anomaly detection and backup comparison, administrators can identify exactly which files changed to signal an anomaly and evaluate their contents to isolate valid ransomware infections.
  • OS Compliance Checks: Many ransomware variants depend on unpatched systems for infiltration. Retrospect Backup now utilizes its extensive footprint to aggregate system information and identify systems that are out of compliance with the latest version of each operating system.

In addition, Retrospect Backup 19.1 will be released on August 30 with the following features:

  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Identity protection is important even for on-premise applications. Retrospect Backup will support configuration encryption and multi-factor authentication combined with a password prompt. Even if an attacker gains administrative access to the computer where Retrospect Backup runs, they will not be able to access the program or the configuration files.
  • Flexible Immutable Retention Periods: Retrospect will support an additional type of retention where Retrospect extends the period on past backups instead of including that data in new backups.
  • Additional 12 Worldwide Locations for Retrospect Cloud Storage: Retrospect Cloud Storage will include twelve additional worldwide locations, certifying each of Wasabi’s data centers around the world.
  • Microsoft Azure for Government: Retrospect will support blob storage on Microsoft Azure for Government to enhance support for state and local agencies looking for data protection in a US-based high-security data center.

Finally, Retrospect Management Console, the hosted backup analytics service, will be updated on August 30 to include the following features:

  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Identity protection is crucial for cloud services, and Retrospect Management Console will offer app-based multi-factor authentication for a more secure workflow.
  • Redesigned Reporting: The dashboard will be redesigned to better aggregate information for larger environments to address reporting pains in significantly larger backup infrastructure.
  • User Roles: Organizations will be able to assign roles to individual users, with “Administrators” able to access any function within the service and “Viewers” able to utilize the extensive reporting capabilities without worrying about changing any settings.
  • Audit Log: Administrators will be able to access a full audit log for actions taken by any users on their account.

Retrospect Virtual 2022

Included in Retrospect Virtual 2022:

  • Faster Backups and Restores: Fast data protection is critical in physical and virtual environments. Retrospect Virtual is now significantly faster at backups and restores.
  • Backup Data Deduplication: With advanced data deduplication, Retrospect Virtual can now protect larger amount of data in a smaller storage space.
  • Hyper-V 2022 Support: Hyper-V 2022 is the latest version of Microsoft’s virtualization software, and Retrospect Virtual is now fully certified for it.

Pricing and Free 30-Day Trial

For Retrospect Backup pricing details, please visit: https://www.retrospect.com/store. To request a free 30-day trial, please visit: https://www.retrospect.com/try.

General Availability

Retrospect Backup 19.0 and Retrospect Virtual 2022 will be generally available on July 12, and Retrospect Backup 19.1 and Retrospect Management Console updates will be generally available on August 30.

Retrospect Adds Anomaly Detection To Ransomware Protection In Retrospect Backup 18.5

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 15, 2022 by itnerd

Retrospect, a StorCentric company, today announced the general availability (GA) of Retrospect Backup 18.5, featuring new anomaly detection, customizable filtering and thresholds, and enhanced ransomware protection to help businesses quickly detect and protect against malicious attacks. With deeper Microsoft Azure Blob integration for Immutable Backups and integrated cloud bucket creation, Retrospect Backup 18.5’s anomaly detection and ransomware protect bolsters StorCentric’s data-centric security approach to organizations’ critical infrastructure.

Ransomware is a huge global threat to businesses around the world. Beyond the high-profile attacks, including Colonial Pipeline, JBS, Garmin, and Acer, many people now personally know a colleague whose business was attacked. According to Coveware, most corporate targets are small and medium businesses. 72% of targeted businesses have fewer than 1,000 employees, and 37% have fewer than 100. Businesses are projected to have paid out $20B in 2021, a 100% Y-o-Y increase for the last four years, and it’s only going to get worse with new business models like RaaS: ransomware-as-a-service. With Retrospect Backup 18, businesses can protect their infrastructure with immutable backups for ransomware protection.

Beyond protection, organizations need to detect ransomware as early as possible to stop the threat and remediate those resources. Retrospect Backup 18.5 includes anomaly detection to identify changes in an environment that warrants the attention of IT. Administrators can tailor anomaly detection to their business’s specific systems using customizable filtering and thresholds for each of their backup policies, and those anomalies are aggregated on Retrospect Management Console across the entire business’s Retrospect Backup instances or a partner’s client base with a notification area for responding to those anomalies.

Included in Retrospect Backup 18.5:

  • Anomaly Detection: Detect anomalies in systems based on customizable filters and thresholds tailored to individual environments.
  • Retrospect Management Console Integration: View anomalies across a business or partner’s entire client base in a single pane of glass.
  • Improved Microsoft Azure Blob Integration: Set individual immutable retention policies for different backup sets within the same Azure Storage Container.
  • Streamlined Immutable Backup User Experience: Automatically create cloud buckets with immutable backups supported by default.
  • LTO-9 Support: Includes support for LTO-9, with capacities up to 18TB (45TB compressed).

Retrospect Backup 18.5 is a free upgrade to Retrospect Backup 18, the award-winning ransomware protection solution. For Retrospect Backup pricing details, please visit: https://www.retrospect.com/store. To request a free 30-day trial, please visit: https://www.retrospect.com/store/trial

Retrospect Announces Integration With Microsoft Azure Blob Storage

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2021 by itnerd

Retrospect today announced the general availability of Microsoft Azure Blob Storage support for Retrospect Backup and Retrospect Virtual. The software updates allow businesses to leverage Azure as a backup destination as well as a cloud storage location to protect on-premise data.

Included in the release is support for ransomware protection using Retrospect’s Immutable Backup, preventing malware from compromising critical business backups. With deep Azure integration, Retrospect Backup continues to provide the industry’s most flexible backup solution with simple, safe, and secure backups. Microsoft Azure has grown dramatically recently, and with its addition to the wide range of cloud storage providers that Retrospect supports, customers can select the best cloud based on their unique business. Retrospect Backup is able to use Azure as a storage destination as well as a data source, enabling companies to protect assets stored on Blob Storage using Retrospect’s workflow options. 

Retrospect 18.1 for Windows and Mac is now generally available (GA) and free to customers who have Retrospect 18. Retrospect is available in six languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. 

StorCentric’s Retrospect Dads & Grads Promotion Launches

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 11, 2020 by itnerd

With high school and college graduations upon us and Father’s Day just around the corner, Retrospect, a leader in data protection for businesses and a StorCentric company, today announced its Retrospect Backup Dads and Grads Promotion. For a limited time, Retrospect is offering a free 90-day subscription license for every Retrospect Backup product. 

Retrospect’s trusted data protection suite ensures homes and businesses around the world can recover quickly from accidents, hardware failure, theft, and disaster. With its complete coverage of Windows, Mac, Linux computers and VMware and Hyper-V virtualization platforms, Retrospect provides holistic protection for any home or business, with cloud storage support for offsite locations on Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, and many other services. With Retrospect, it is easy to restore all data – from business critical files to family photos, with a click of a button. 

Dads, Grads and anyone whose goal it is to enjoy the peace of mind that comes with the ability to backup now and restore forever can visit https://www.retrospect.com/dads_and_grads to learn more and sign-up for a free 90-day subscription. Click on one of the buttons on the page, or use the coupon code ‘DADGRAD’ on Retrospect’s online store to receive a free 90-day subscription license. No credit card is required, and you can cancel at any time and still restore your backups. You can also contact the Retrospect sales team by email at na.sales@retrospect.com or by phone at 1-888-376-1078, to request your free 90-day subscription license.