ESG Blogs

We recently conducted our 2018 Data Protection Landscape Survey and uncovered some very interesting trends. In our series of video blogs on the research, we will cover several facets of the ever-changing landscape of data protection. We surveyed over 300 respondents in various market segments based on company size, allowing us to delve deeper into midmarket or enterprise trends, for example, or by company revenue bracket. We also identified not only the age of the organization, but the age of respondents. These demographic data points can be useful in further understanding the market. If you are a subscriber to ESG data protection research, please check out the 2018 Data Protection Landscape Master Survey Results.

AWS re:Invent is a premier event, and ESG always makes it a priority to attend. The event captures an audience of IT decision makers and business leaders who are hungry to learn and discover where Amazon is planning to shake up or enhance IT and business strategies. At the event this year, I’ll be paying close attention to Amazon Workspaces.

In a blog I wrote and published in August, I listed the 8 attributes that my colleague Doug Cahill and I believe are critical for a cybersecurity technology platform. The blog also ranks the 8 attributes according to a recent survey of 232 cybersecurity professionals working at enterprise organizations (i.e., those with more than 1,000 employees).

IT organizations need to be responsive to the business. Digital transformation, IoT, and cloud computing initiatives require the underlying IT environment (HW and SW) to be able to react quickly and scale seamlessly, but it can’t do that if your technical resources are spending more time getting the proper licenses correct. This is especially impactful in fast growing companies.

IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat has been termed a “game changer” by many, but what is the real impact of this deal? Where will the acquisition have a significant impact and where will the combination be less effective? I've written up a new brief for our ESG subscribers about the IBM/Red Hat deal.

In summary, while the deal is significant in scope, the near-term impacts will be limited by the lack of existing synergies in the combined product portfolio. This acquisition helps IBM’s position in the hybrid cloud market significantly but doesn’t enable it to leapfrog competitors like Microsoft, AWS, or Google. The biggest opportunity for IBM is in the container and Kubernetes space, especially if on-premises and bare metal containers become popular. The new IBM would be very well positioned for that type of cloud.

In a recent research survey, ESG asked a panel of 232 security and IT professionals a series of questions about cloud-native security (i.e., security controls, management, and monitoring options built into cloud infrastructure and offered by cloud service providers (CSPs)). Here are a few of the data points we uncovered:

I wrapped up my 3-week tour of the cybersecurity industry with a stop in Las Vegas for McAfee MPower. Here are a few of my takeaways from the event:

NetApp’s 2018 Insight event was nothing if not engaging: not just for what this vendor is doing (in a traditional announcement and product sense), but for what it is rapidly becoming (in terms of its place in the burgeoning information-based-world).

Of course, NetApp’s impressive – and continuing – recovery and re-formation is only possible because of its excellent execution over the last few years: Focus, finances, and futures have been the emphases, and they are paying off. Take a look at ESG’s On Location video to get a feel for this year’s event and some key takeaways.  

I recently attended the GitHub Universe event in San Francisco, where the word's leading software development platform laid out the future for developers worldwide. The reach and scope of GitHub really was on display at the show, with over 1 billion contributions from the community this year, 8 million new developers, and the fact that 80% of GitHub users are outside the US.  

Today, IBM released a massive storage-related announcement with a variety of new innovations offering value to modern, data-driven businesses. There is a ton in this release, so let’s look at some of the highlights, which I have conveniently divided into two categories.