
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.