Cloud Computing

One of the most exciting intersections between data protection and the cloud is disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS). These services enable organizations of all sizes to not only leverage cloud-based storage capacity for data survivability, but also actually restart servers and services from a cloud provider when they need it, while not having to manage a second set of infrastructure when they don’t. This brief looks at recent DRaaS usage and perceptions based on ESG research conducted on business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) trends in 2016.

Unlike businesses born in the digital or Amazon age, most traditional businesses are not planning to go all in on public cloud. Rather, many are planning to take a hybrid cloud approach, whereby some business workloads will be shifted into the public cloud, while other workloads will remain on-premises. The hope is that in doing so, businesses will save money by leveraging the economies of scale of public cloud infrastructure resources and regain focus on what they’re good at so they can be more competitive. Sounds great, but it’s easier said than done.

We continue to see a great amount of interest in combining “data protection” and “the cloud” – but also a great deal of confusion, in that there isn’t such thing as “the cloud.”

According to ESG research, 75% of organizations use public cloud services of one kind or another today. A majority (65%) use SaaS, 38% use IaaS, and 33% use PaaS. In terms of IaaS, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is still the king of the hill, but many large enterprises are implementing or kicking the tires on alternatives.

This ESG Lab Spotlight examines how the Bitglass Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) provides access control, data loss prevention, and threat detection for data that has moved outside the firewall via public cloud applications and bring your own device (BYOD) policies. 

ESG VP of Research John McKnight and Senior Analyst Mark Bowker discuss Mark's 2016 predictions for Mobility, specifically in regards to Innovation that may be ahead of the demand curve.

ESG VP of Research John McKnight and Senior Analyst Terri McClure discuss Terri's 2016 predictions for the Enterprise File Sync and Share market.  This chapter addresses Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

When in conversations about the EFSS market, I'm often asked where Microsoft, Amazon, and Google (MAG) fit in the overall landscape. Usually it takes the form of, "isn't [insert MAG vendor name here] going to run away with this market when they get serious?"

2016 may be remembered as the year that container technology began to firmly take root across many data center environments. Case in point — 36% of users in ESG’s upcoming hybrid cloud survey indicated they are currently using containers in a limited capacity, with an additional 32% reporting they are currently testing containers.

ESG VP of Research John McKnight and Senior Analyst Terri McClure discuss Terri's 2016 predictions for the Enterprise File Sync and Share market.   This chapter addresses consolidation.

Plexxi is one of those “intelligent infrastructure” companies I’ve been harping about as of late. And by intelligent, in this case I mean a network that can self-actualize and alter its very being based on real-time application and usage demands. It’s way cool.

ESG VP of Research John McKnight and Senior Analyst Terri McClure discuss Terri's 2016 predictions for the Enterprise File Sync and Share market.  This chapter addresses Integration.

The new year is underway, and as part of my 2016 planning, I sat down with ESG VP of Research and Advisory Services John McKnight to chat about what I think this year will bring to the EFSS space.

When ESG started tracking the use of public cloud computing services as a measure for containing IT costs back in 2009, it ranked dead last among a list of nine potential strategies. In ESG's upcoming 2016 Spending Intentions survey, however, the use of public cloud computing services now ranks as the number one IT cost containment measure.

Application-adaptive Data Infrastructure Software

ESG Lab evaluated DataCore SANsymphony and DataCore Hyper-converged Virtual SAN software with a focus on assessing the value of infrastructure-wide storage virtualization and hyper-converged solutions for the data center. Testing focused on centralized management, ease of use, capacity efficiency, data mobility, and performance. SANsymphony’s enhanced high availability and disaster recovery capabilities are also examined.

ESG Senior Lab Analyst Kerry Dolan discusses ESG's recent testing of VersaStack, a converged infrastructure solution from Cisco and IBM.

On August 2, 1978, the rock band, “Boston”, released the title track of their new album - “Don’t Look Back”. The hit song eventually rose to #4 on the Top 100 Billboard chart that year. Don’t Look Back could be a key theme for some of the movers and shakers in the information technology industry as 2015 represented a year of some significant change for several multi-billion dollar organizations.