INDUSTRY OPINION
Simplicity and innovation are critical to effective data management The Covid-19 crisis has greatly accelerated a number of major trends in Information Technology (IT). Customers are increasingly looking to adopt multicloud environments as part of their cloud strategy, and it is imperative to be in a position to easily migrate from on-premises to the cloud and between clouds. By Johan Scheepers, Country Head at Commvault South Africa
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here is also an increased adoption of cloud-native workloads and automation, but an even greater need for economies and increased returns. These shifts in IT have created a number of new data challenges, from data fragmentation to management complexity, a growing skills gap and the need for compliance and recovery readiness. Businesses today need simplicity and innovation to help them solve these challenges – they need intelligent data management.
Bringing it all together As a result of their digital transformation journey, many enterprises are left with a complex web of point solutions to manage various areas of their data and multiple different use cases. The reality though is that point solutions cannot solve modern data challenges, and they can actually exacerbate the problem. A multitude of point solutions add both cost and complexity and prevent businesses from having an effective view of all of their data. Today’s data management challenges require a single, cohesive solution that brings together storage, protection, control, and management, and allows you to view or use the data wherever it resides. This single pane of glass allows 22
SECURITY FOCUS AFRICA OCTOBER 2020
visibility into data regardless of location, from endpoints and files to databases, virtual machines and traditional apps to cloud and software as a service platform. Not only does this enable businesses to protect all of their workloads across the enterprise from a single management console, it also dramatically reduces management overheads and complexity as a result.
Complete backup, recovery and management Modern and intelligent data management needs to not only bring data together but also deliver a unified experience and enable simplicity through an intuitive user interface. Furthermore, infinite scalability enables data management to grow along with rapidly expanding or potentially contracting data need and flexibility ensures businesses can meet changing requirements for on-demand and consumption-based models. Availability is also a challenge, and data management platforms need to ensure that data is available at all times, even in the event of maintenance, unplanned downtime or other unforeseen circumstances. Security is another element, particularly around ransomware protection. The global pandemic has brought with it a rampant increase in
malware attacks, and businesses must be prepared to mitigate the effects when, not if, they are the victims of a breach. Other security requirements include user access, auditing capabilities, backup and encryption.
Agility is the secret to unlocking value Innovation is an essential component of accelerating the digital transformation and multi-cloud journey, and data management solutions need to support this. Support for cloud-native workloads is critical, and effective protection for virtual environments is vital in a modern data environment. Data management solutions also need to be flexible enough to accommodate and manage new workloads. In a world where the future is uncertain and where technology continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, agility in data management is absolutely critical. Businesses today need innovative solutions driven by a simple interface, to bring their data together and enable visibility and insight across all workloads, throughout the enterprise. An end-to-end solution, rather than a disconnected collection of point products is essential to help businesses deal with their data challenges today and going forward.
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