Blogs

IT organizations that are running a data center have a set of challenges on their hands given that the teams are working from home (WFH). Data centers are like your automobile that requires hands-on scheduled and unplanned maintenance. Well-run data centers are a fine oiled piece of machinery that is constantly worked on to meet and deliver business demand. IT organizations are masters at this, but what happens when the team is mandated to WFH?

The technology to help businesses deliver a secure and productive experience for employees as they work from home has been around for years. Businesses have implemented virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) to enable remote employees, but the technology has never broken through a relatively small percentage of the employee base or been used outside of specific use cases. ESG has spoken with numerous companies that invested in VDI or DaaS to help address local business continuity, but now companies are finding themselves having to maintain business continuity globally. Something they have not likely planned for.

According to ESG research, 62% of organizations were poised to increase spending on cybersecurity in 2020. Thirty-two percent of survey respondents said they would invest in cybersecurity technologies using AI/ML for threat detection, followed by data security (31%), network security (30%), and cloud application security (27%).

Of course, that was back in the innocent and carefree days before COVID-19. Have things changed?  Yes, and seemingly overnight. Like society at large, the cybersecurity world's priorities, strategies, and tasks have been turned upside down.

With ransomware a top security concern for most cybersecurity teams, the cost of cybersecurity insurance is making its way into the annual budgeting process for CFOs around the globe. While ransomware is not a new cyber-threat, largely entering the cybersecurity scene in 2016 and 2017 with high-profile attacks, research conducted by ESG reveals that a majority of organizations continued to experience ransomware attacks in 2019, representing a concern for both business and IT leadership.[1]

It’s 2020, yet many organizations still depend upon a myriad of disparate point tools for security operations, leading to many challenges. According to ESG research:

• 35% of cybersecurity professionals say that the biggest challenges associated with managing an assortment of point tools is that it makes security operations complex and time consuming.

ESG recently completed a very interesting Economic Validation report for a very interesting solution from iTernity. I normally don't blog about all the reports we do but this one got my attention.   

Our recent research on IT challenges and spending intentions for 2020 highlights that data growth, costs, skills shortages and operational efficiency are top challenges. Organizations need  solutions that allow them to retain data for compliance (sometimes for years). It's a perfect storm: more data growth every year, the need to retain it for extended periods of time, and tighter budgets (I never hear of an unlimited IT budget!). Here's the thing, while cloud is a great destination, archives that don’t necessarily have to reside in a public cloud can be cost-effective and operationally efficient.  

RSA 2020 had an uninvited guest, Covid-19. Fist bumps replaced handshakes while hand sanitizing stations seemed ubiquitously stationed throughout the Moscone Center. Attendance seemed to be down due to factors like the virus panic and the withdrawal of major players like AT&T, IBM, and Verizon. 

While lots of people pulled back, the ESG team was in full attendance. Here are a few of our observations and thoughts on RSA 2020:

With RSA Conference 2020 now in the rearview mirror, my colleague John Grady and I discuss the theme of the conference in this video blog, the human element. After acknowledging the importance of community, we explore how the emergence of software-defined perimeters (SDP) will help secure a variety of user access use cases. We also discuss how the broad adoption of cloud services is necessitating a retooling of identity and access management programs from SSO to MFA, privileged access management, and user activity analytics. We wrap-up noting how much we enjoyed seeing so much of our community at our annual ESG Breakfast at RSA Conference event.

Achieving compliance and meeting the newest data privacy requirements is pretty much like trying to hit a moving target. In the dark. At high speed. 

Modern IT has a need for speed. In the digital era, data fuels decision making, enhances how businesses interact with their customers, and determines operational efficiency, plus in a growing number of cases, data is the product.

Last week, Pure Storage announced some very impressive fourth quarter earnings results. Some highlights include:

• Q4 revenue $492.0 million, up 17% year-over-year.
• Full-year revenue $1.643 billion, up 21% year-over-year.
• Q4 GAAP gross margin 70.8%; Full-year GAAP gross margin 69.0%.
• Full-year free cash flow was $101.7 million, up 59% year-over-year.
• Pure added more than 500 new customers in the quarter, reaching over 7,500 total customers.