Veritas

Dealing with data

Arthur Dell, Head of Technology International – Veritas Technologies, explains the perks of cloud data management.

What are the key benefits of data management in the cloud? Removing the infrastructure cost element and all associated operational costs is a major drawcard to many organisations. Furthermore, the ability to offer simplified management where cost is proportional to usage is a significant differentiator. Traditional infrastructure overhead is removed, along with continued buying cycles with ever-growing data and the tools required to manage it.

As cloud adoption accelerates, managing and protecting data at scale grows increasingly complex. When a cloud service is used, data sent to the cloud is often stored in different cloud data centres across different locations, possibly in different countries. The proliferation of different data types creates unique challenges. Many organisations deploy disparate data management and data protection tools in distinct silos across on-premises and public-cloud environments. Having the ability to manage all elements of cloud data by utilising a single set of tools that are transposed across the entire landscape is a major advantage.

What are your tips for CIOs to optimize their multi-cloud environments? Protecting data is not the cloud provider’s responsibility but remains the responsibility of the organisation and is a key requirement that should be addressed upfront.

Having visibility into what types of data exist and where these data types need to be stored is a key consideration. This allows organisations to intelligently host and protect data with performance and protection that matches the business need. Having the means to ensure that applications remain highly available and where data and systems can be migrated simply and efficiently is also a consideration. Of paramount importance is that all of these capabilities exist within a single platform to ensure that simplicity is preserved.

How can you ensure data protection in the cloud? Digital transformation, and especially cloud adoption, has accelerated due to the global pandemic. To support widespread remote working, enterprises are creating more data and facing a business imperative to move their applications out of their own data centres to the cloud. A new global survey of nearly 2,700 IT leaders and professionals in 21 countries, conducted by Wakefield Research and commissioned by Veritas, has determined that as this shift accelerates, resiliency planning has not kept pace, creating a significant resiliency gap. There are numerous reasons, but the key is that while enterprises have found the cloud to be an easy-to-adopt platform for running applications and information storage, they’ve found it much more difficult to implement a platform for resiliency. There is an urgent need for enterprises to close this resiliency gap by accelerating their resiliency planning to keep pace with today’s speed and increasing complexity of IT.

Having a data protection strategy that is clearly defined and implemented is key. This option may be cloud resident or onpremises. A key consideration is implementing a mechanism that ensures a hybrid or multi-cloud data protection platform exists in a unified, cross-platform, single solution configuration.

Do you see demand for cloud storage in the region? Our research showed that 29% of United Arab Emirates enterprises have adopted a hybrid multi-cloud strategy, and 53% store all of part of their data in the cloud. The average business in the UAE is using about nine cloud services (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS), with 10% using more than 20. By comparison, the global average is 12.

So, absolutely yes, the growth curve in cloud adoption in the region is significant and will continue. While this is clearly evident, it is key that organisations consider the broader aspects of data protection to ensure that the migration, protection, and availability of their applications and data is simplified and de-risked.

Transform your data center with hyperconverged infrastructure

Lenovo ThinkAgile HCI solutions deliver one flexible pool of resources and a simpler path to cloud.

Which HCI flavor is the best choice for you?

Lenovo ThinkAgile HCI enables you to achieve your goals with a solution that fits your hypervisor preference and other requirements

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series solutions integrate Nutanix software to greatly reduce IT infrastructure expenses and TCO, support multiple HCI software hypervisors. You can accelerate use cases such as virtual desktops. Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Series solutions are built on Microsoft Azure Stack HCI software, Windows Admin Center management, and native integration with Azure hybrid services which make it easy to extend applications to the cloud. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series solutions, powered by VMware software, deliver value from day one by helping you to automate resource optimization, improve business agility, and take the easiest path to hybrid cloud.

Learn more: https://www.lenovo.com/ae/en/data-center/solutions/