Blogs

A couple weeks back, Google Cloud’s multi-week virtual event Next 20: OnAir started. There were a number of announcements, but the biggest was BigQuery Omni. By combining BigQuery and Anthos, BigQuery Omni enables organizations to embrace multi-cloud analytics by cost-effectively bringing Google Cloud's data warehouse to where the data resides across public cloud environments.

As we all work through the various impacts of the novel coronavirus – from the depressing and the serious to the merely inconvenient – it's vital that as much industry and business as is safe and possible continues. When thousands are dying, it can seem trite to even consider this, but it is not only important in terms of us having a vibrant post-virus world; IT is an important contributor to sustaining our lives and communications today, and also a vital element to finding ways to overcome the virus.

Execution.  On many fronts.

This is really what came to mind in the first few minutes of the Commvault FutureReady online event yesterday (7/21).

First, the event itself was excellent: length, content, delivery, use of customers, and it included primarily live sessions from what I could tell. The platform worked without a hitch. To net it out: as a participant, one benefited from both engaging content, and active engagement through the ability to interact with the speakers. Great job! Great execution.

The first blog I wrote about elastic cloud gateways prior to Black Hat 2019 referenced next-generation firewalls relative to the shift to application-centric, Layer 7 scanning, and the massive impact that had on the network security market. What I didn’t appreciate at the time is how similar the trajectory of the two spaces would be. In the 10 months since Black Hat, we’ve witnessed a massive amount of momentum in this area. In fact, recently completed ESG research on elastic cloud gateways found that 94% of organizations reported usage of, or some level of interest in, these types of solutions. With secure access services edge (SASE) having become common terminology within the network security space, I’m often asked what the difference is between ECG and SASE. The fact is, there are many more similarities than differences; however, the differences that do exist are important.

As we all work through the various impacts of the novel coronavirus – from the depressing and the serious to the merely inconvenient – it's vital that as much industry and business as is safe and possible continues. When thousands are dying, it can seem trite to even consider this, but it is not only important in terms of us having a vibrant post-virus world; IT is an important contributor to sustaining our lives and communications today, and also a vital element to finding ways to overcome the virus.

But that business-continuation demands some very different approaches and thinking; therefore, whenever possible over the coming weeks I'll be asking executives from IT vendors and partners to discuss their thoughts around the marketing changes, challenges, and - yes - also the opportunities that this pandemic is creating. I've called this series "Marketing in Challenging Times" - that's not to skirt around the issue of COVID-19, but to acknowledge the fact that the "challenging times" are likely to extend well beyond the point at which the pandemic is controlled, contained, or beaten...and also of course perhaps some of the lessons-learned and silver-linings-discovered will continue as well. Everyone brings their own perspectives to these conversations; as a minimum we hope they are cathartic, and at best they might provide a new idea or inspiration.

XDR may succeed but XDR vendors face deployment challenges and competition on several fronts.

My colleague Dave Gruber and I are all over this new concept called XDR. Just what is this new acronym all about? In a recent CSO Online blog, I defined XDR as:

An integrated suite of security products spanning hybrid IT architectures, designed to interoperate and coordinate on threat prevention, detection, and response. XDR unifies control points, security telemetry, analytics, and operations into one enterprise system.

Hmm, sounds interesting but is there a market for yet another type of security product?

HPE’s Discover 2020 virtual event continued this week, with a day focused on storage. On the whole, HPE’s virtual Discover experience has been impressive, entertaining, and well managed. Check it out, the content is still available.

With typical understatement, no assertive flourishes, and a complete lack of competitive gauntlet-throwing, Oracle’s Larry Ellison just announced – separate but linked – enhancements to its overall cloud strategy. Well, actually no - of course not!! While the announcements were strategic, real, and compelling, there were flashes-aplenty of the Larry we have come to expect (even from a shelter-in-place, and rather-nice-looking, kitchen)…a feisty and assured red stake placed firmly in the increasingly hybrid IT landscape.  

I wrote some months ago that under Sanjay Mirchandani, Commvault was not just changing, it had already changed. Fast forward a few months and we now find ourselves in a totally different world. But one thing that hasn’t changed and stands out is the continued execution and focus of the Commvault team, even through these confusing times.

This year, Pure Storage’s Accelerate Event went digital and the experience was impressive. While as an industry the transition from in-person to virtual events has deliver mixed results (so much so, I wrote a blog about it), Pure Accelerate 2020 was brief, to the point, and managed to simultaneously inform and entertain. If you don’t believe me, you can still check out much of the content still on Pure’s site.