Today, there are numerous technologies touting that they provide enterprise capabilities, but are also an ideal fit for small-to-medium sized enterprises - which makes one wonder...  For enterprise customers, is the solution in fact, "enterprise-class?"  Or vice versa, for the small-to-medium sized organization are they perhaps being made to pay for features/functionality that they do not need?  Today, we speak with Bill Tolson, Vice President of Marketing of Archive360 on this important topic.

VMblog:  We have entered an era in which everything is customizable - from your phone to your cable system.  Would you say that today's IT professionals are now demanding that same flexibility in their technology solutions?

Bill Tolson:  Yes, you hit the nail on the head. Regardless of the size of the organization, or the vertical, IT professionals want be able to customize and pay for just the features/functionality that is important to them, and fits their budget.  The one-size-fits-all mentality has become a thing of the past.  Unfortunately, there are many IT vendors that have not caught up to that reality just yet (possibly due to product development limitations, or maybe the margins are just too good to pass up).

VMblog:  Agreed.  What types of varied data types are you seeing at your customers, and what unique challenges are they facing, or goals trying to achieve for each?

Tolson: Today, I would say those we see most consistently across our customers, in no particular order, are: databases, files, legacy applications, media, messaging, Salesforce and SharePoint.  Of course, verticals have their own specific challenges, like healthcare.  Each organization can have its own goals or challenges, when it comes to each data type. 

For instance, for databases we commonly see organizations working to retire and/or archive aging database application for cost savings, to free-up space, and to increase application performance - all while trying to ensure regulations compliance and legal preparedness.  For file data, organizations are working to clean-up file servers to reduce costs, increase productivity, and lower legal and regulatory risk, as well as trying to extend capabilities to the cloud.  Legacy apps present a whole host of troubles.  These include the challenges organizations are facing as they try to find, migrate, archive and manage structured and unstructured legacy data in a low cost, secure and searchable manner.  Many are looking to the cloud as it can present a terrific solution for eliminating the customary time, cost and risk previously associated with app retirement.  And by risk, I mean in regards to ensuring legal and regulatory requirements are met.  For media data, organizations want to realize the full value of audio and video content, but in order to do so, they need to first build capabilities around transcription, indexing and search.  For messaging, from email, to social media, to collaboration applications, the challenges range from onboarding, and consolidation to management - especially when you think about the freedom of communication social platforms provide employees, and the ramifications it presents from a legal and regulations compliance standpoint.  And, for SharePoint data, IT is typically trying to better manage, analyze and protect it; and like most of today's data types - move it to the cloud.

Salesforce is also leveraged by many of our customers.  Here the challenge typically lies in how to best archive, protect and manage aging Salesforce content - especially, how to avoid forced deletion that puts companies at great legal and regulations non-compliance risk. 

And, verticals face their own challenges as well.  For instance, in healthcare, where budgets can be especially tight yet internal governance, legal and compliance mandates especially demanding, IT seems to be on a never ending hunt for affordable information management and archiving solutions that help them to get their arms around their ever expanding sources, of ever expanding sized data (think imaging, and other innovative healthcare apps). 

VMblog: You recently launched an enhanced version of your Archive2Azure platform to address these challenges and goals.  Can you tell us a bit about it?

Tolson:  Absolutely.  We listened to our customers and channel partners and felt it was time to thwart the one-size-fits-all technology paradigm that seems to have developed over the years - especially at some of the bigger established vendors.  This outdated model benefits the IT vendor, but rarely the customer.  No two IT shops are identical when it comes to business, legal, regulatory and budgetary requirements.  They can be similar of course, but rarely identical.  So its important that they be offered flexibility, when it comes to their IT solutions.

We recently launched a newly enhanced Archive2Azure, intelligent information management and archiving platform.  It enables organizations of all sizes across virtually every industry vertical, to better capture, extend, onboard, and manage numerous types of structured and unstructured data into their Microsoft Cloud (Office365 and Azure) in a manner that meets regulatory, legal, and business mandates, in a legally defensible and compliant manner.  The enhanced platform offers the freedom to choose from customizable modules that can be added to the base solution, which enables them to meet their business and IT demands, as well as legal and compliance mandates, in the most affordable fashion possible.

Archive2Azure uniquely addresses today's key requirements, which include ensuring all data is stored in its original format, is WORM compliant, is secure, and can be found and retrieved quickly.  All data is maintained in the customer's own Azure tenancy, retention/disposition policies can be easily assigned, chain of custody is maintained, powerful audit and reporting for peace of mind, and much more.

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