ESG Blogs

No matter how much changes in life and in IT, two things stay the same: 1. Data continues to grow, and 2. Backup remains a problem. Last year when ESG polled storage decision makers on their data storage challenges, the rapid rate of data growth and backup/protection were two of the top three most commonly identified storage challenges.[1] They were also two of the top three storage challenges in ESG’s 2017 storage research, and in 2015, 2012, 2008, and… well, you get the idea.

Old friend and Cybereason CSO Sam Curry and I got together (virtually) to chat about all things SOAPA. In part 2 of our video, we focus on:

• This newish thing called XDR. My colleague Dave Gruber and I are all over XDR as analysts, so I asked Sam for his thoughts. Sam thinks of XDR as taking EDR to the next level. He even broke down the acronym stating that the X signified telemetry independence. The “D” in XDR is somewhat overstated, Sam is really focused on the importance of the R, response, as security is about blocking (not finding) the bad guys. In the end, XDR should be a force multiplier for the cybersecurity staff.

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.

Work is no longer a place you go. Tyler and I discuss how businesses are getting creative in the ways they enable remote work and potential back to office solutions. It's fascinating to see the solutions we have talked about for years plugging directly into the future of work. Please listen in as Tyler and I share some of our observations and insights.

I’ve known Cybereason CSO, Sam Curry for years, so it was a pleasure to lure him to ESG’s virtual studio for a SOAPA video. In part 1 of our 2-part series, Sam and I discuss:

• Why EDR? Sam describes how, unlike SIEM, EDR is designed for one specific purpose – finding the bad guys. The best EDR solutions identify signals in all the noise, alert humans about malicious activities, and make it easy for them to take action.

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.

Cloud security as has reached a tipping point by virtue of the fact that both SaaS and internally developed cloud-native applications now perform business-critical functions. In turn, cloud security can no longer be a siloed discipline in which separate teams employ separate controls to secure separate environments. Fortunately, cloud security is starting to be mainstreamed – security teams are getting more involved in scrums and sprints, and many CIO’s are creating and funding cross-functional cloud centers of excellence (CCoE). The maturation of cloud security programs, however, needs to include bringing cloud observability into the security operations center. It’s time to put the C in XDR. 

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.