Veritas integrates technology for protection and insights

Having been in the business of data and being market leader for over 20 years now, Veritas has seen the digital transformation increase at an ever more rapid pace. What are the challenges that have come with this transformation?

First, and most obvious – data growth. 90% of the world’s data has been generated over the last two years. And costs associated with this growth and the storage of that data continue to rise. Our customers concern grow as their data grows – how do they measure it, how do they manage it, how do they know what they need to keep and what they need to confidently delete?

Next, the challenge of data fragmentation. Where is the data? With data growth being caused by completely new data sources – from social media, to cloud, to modern workloads, data is no longer held just within the organization’s physical perimeter.

Data agility has indeed accelerated digital transformation, especially with the advent of cloud computing and the concept of access as opposed to ownership. But with it, management of the data is now moved from being 100% under IT, and if this is not addressed, leads to increased risk and uncontrolled data growth and fragmentation.

The next challenge revolves around stricter regulatory and compliance laws like GDPR coming into effect to more efficiently handle and manage the data being generated. Bringing it home to Africa, governments and users alike are now raising concerns on data privacy and security, resulting in conversations around data governance and regulation. Left unchecked, this challenge comes at a cost and associated financial and reputational risks.

All these challenges culminate in lack of data visibility – the customer is unable to get a global view of their information environment to make informed decisions and reduce risk. You cannot manage what you do not know. You need to know how fast your data is growing, where it is located, how agile it is and whether you are compliant. Only then can you identify the value, the risk and the cost of your data.

It’s one thing for Veritas to recognize these as the challenges, but how did you then validate them?

Veritas commissioned the Databerg report, hearing from over 1000 CIOs about their data challenges. The results were startling.

• Only 14% was clean data – data that was proactively used to give valuable insight to the organizations – what we call business critical data.
• 32% was seen to be data that is redundant, obsolete or trivial – what we call ROT data. It adds very little business value to the organization and has minimal impact on business outcomes. Why would you want to keep this data?
• And finally, 54% of customers’ data was found to be dark data – meaning they have no idea what it holds but keep it anyway. Managers were not prepared to deal with their data growing so fast, there keeping track of it has become a nightmare. Likening it to an iceberg, the threat really does lie below the waterline.

Those are some staggering statistics. How does Veritas help our customers address these challenges? How can the Databerg be conquered?

First, ensuring their data is protected as it scales – beyond size, platform and workloads, and ensuring performance and resiliency.

Next, as migrating to cloud becomes more commonplace, and with Africa adopting the concept that data is boundary-less, Veritas is helping customers accelerate cloud adoption. Moving data from on-premise locations to the cloud, between clouds, and back to their on-premise environment.

Veritas also optimizes our customers’ data, providing the visibility that is so desperately needed thereby reducing their storage growth and costs. Helping them delete confidently, tier, and archive their data.

And finally, preparing for compliance to regulation and making informed business decisions, by helping customers classify their information and automate their information lifecycle.

Last words?

Data growth is now projected at 163bn ZB by 2025. Going beyond data protection is not only essential, it is now mandatory. With Veritas currently managing more data than any other company globally, we are going ahead of our customers by providing a holistic view of information management and preparing them for their digital transformation. Drive insight. Reduce cost. Mitigate risk. With Veritas.

Wangui Njoroge is the Channel Manager for the English-Speaking Africa region, at Veritas Technologies LLC.