Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2018.  Read them in this 10th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed by Adrian Moir, Sr. Consultant, Product Management & Lead Technology Evangelist, Quest Software

The Fate of Data Protection

From high-profile security breaches to leakage and loss, 2017 was a rough year for keeping data secure and continuously available -- two critical requirements of today's enterprise. One thing is for certain as the year comes to a close - the need for data protection services continues unwaveringly and, if anything, has become more apparent. Let's take a look at some predictions around what will shake up (or not) the data protection industry as we head into 2018.

2018 Data Protection Predictions

• Cyber insurance: trend or flop?: 2017 was a clear indication that strategies for improving cyber security need to be re-evaluated (on a regular basis), with major security breaches crossing the news threshold regularly. Businesses can't always prevent attacks in a world where breaches or intrusions can be the result of an internal blip. As the new year approaches, the industry chatter on the need for cyber insurance is taking off. In six months-time, I believe we'll either see cyber insurance take off like wildfire or completely fall flat given the difficulty in quantifying a breach's impact. Companies will have to employ tried and true breach mitigation strategies like monitoring entire cyber environments and patching security flaws in addition to educating users.
  

• The death of the ‘traditional' data center: The concept of the ‘traditional' data center will be majorly affected by the industry's impending digital transformation. More consideration will be placed on whether additional cloud deployments create new efficiencies as companies migrate more applications to the cloud, and businesses will look to MSPs to host, support and run their emerging hybrid data centers. IT pros will need to consistently evaluate their deployed systems and investigate what's involved to prepare those systems for migration. An easy migration process and continued service availability will be top of mind, so it's critical they consider what technologies should be at their application foundation. Automated multi-cloud modelling for capability and cost to migrate workloads will become necessary to reduce time to migration and ensure that the expected results and efficiencies are obtained.
  

• Going on the offensive: budgeting for data loss: Data loss remains one of the most detrimental consequences of any security breach. And it occurs not only from external threat vectors, but from many other facets including internal breaches, accidental deletion by users and IT staff, system crashes, application crashes, ransomware, natural and manmade disasters, and the list goes on. These threats will continue to impact businesses in 2018 so companies will begin to update their processes to better evaluate - and plan ahead - for their budgetary requirements to restore lost data.
  

• Speed is still the top concern: The need for even faster recovery speed, which has long been a priority and trend in data protection and backup, is going to magnify in 2018. As the human psyche continues to change with technologies that take both less time and effort, so too will expectations for recovery speed. Experiencing back-end issues is a frustrating and costly (albeit expected) situation businesses find themselves in. State organizations risk countless dollars in lost business caused by system downtime and data loss, So, while users want to recover faster and faster than ever before in the event of an outage, more focus will be placed in evaluating the solutions in place that will ensure and support this expectation.
  

##

About the Author

Adrian Moir, Sr. Consultant, Product Management & Lead Technology Evangelist

Adrian is a seasoned data protection specialist with over 30 years of experience in IT, working for small and large companies, channel partners and vendors. Adrian's background includes experience in electronic and electrical engineering, hardware platforms, networking, operating systems, virtual and cloud infrastructures. Adrian currently works within the Quest Product Management team for Quest Data Protection and advises and implements strategies for the entire Quest Data Protection portfolio.