Blogs

In this video, I talk data protection with Joe Noonan of Unitrends. Our topics of discussion included:

• Recent changes to the data protection landscape
• How the Unitrends strategy has adapted
• Recommendations for end-users

For more from my Data Protection Conversations series, please visit: https://www.esg-global.com/coverage/data-protection-conversations. 

In this video, I share my perspectives on VeeamON 2021. 

Commvault is celebrating its 25^th birthday and what a ride it has been so far! I have to admit that Commvault has a special place in my heart because I pretty much started in this space at the same time and have known the company as a partner and then as a (fringe) competitor for many years when I was on the vendor side.

The past couple of years are really the most important, in my view, as they totally changed the game for the company. I blogged about this a few times in the past. (Check out my blogs here.)

Commvault’s strategy was revisited by CEO Sanjay Mirchandani, with the effect of fundamentally changing the company’s portfolio, but more importantly its future prospects for many years to come in line with what I see as the fundamental market trend of intelligent data management.

Big data estates, advanced analytics and insights, and the democratization of artificial intelligence (AI) are accelerating digital transformations aimed at harnessing the value of data across the business landscape. It is especially prominent in financial services, healthcare, and consumer services where customer experience reigns (and an unfortunate feeding ground for fraud and abuse).

I have been tracking the progress and success of HYCU for the past 3 years or so. The company has consistently delivered on its roadmap and expanded its platform well beyond the original focus on Nutanix. Its leadership team with Simon Taylor at the helm resisted the (I am safely guessing) many temptations for an equity event these past few years—until recently with last week's announcement of an $87.5m series A round. This is significant.

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote about Veeam's V10 and how it was positioning the company to better compete in the very contested enterprise space. It was a strong release and a turning point. 

V11 is the release that places Veeam more squarely in the coveted enterprise space. The product team has executed on their strategy and roadmap (although there is always more work ahead) to beef up the platform in several areas: snapshots, backup, replication, and continuous data protection. 

I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with the IBM Cloud team on a couple of projects and met with some great professionals with significant expertise in disaster recovery and data protection in general. The IBM Cloud team leverages a number of partners in its ecosystem and IBM services.  As the title of this short post indicates, keep an eye on IBM Cloud, as they have built and are working on furthering a great platform for BC/DR. 

It bears repeating that events like Dell Technologies World cover way too much ground to ever cover everything in a brief post. So we won't try! Instead, my ESG colleagues and myself are talking the "bite-sized-chunks" approach, dipping into various topics in reports, blogs, and videos as appropriate. One of the biggest announcements at this year's digital event ("big" as in likely impact rather than elapsed time on the virtual "stage") was Apex - Dell's as-a-service umbrella commitment - and we've already chatted about that in another single-topic video. 

I wonder when people sleep at HYCU! I have been tracking the company for 2.5 years, and it's been innovating and introducing new solutions at a very nice clip, demonstrating focused execution.

It’s hard to believe that almost exactly a year ago, on October 14, 2019, Commvault launched Metallic, which is now an award-winning solution. As a product guy, I know from experience how difficult but rewarding it is to get an award at VMworld for your solution. A one-year old solution with a best in show is very impressive. Well done Metallic team! More importantly: well executed!