Entries categorized under “Governance Risk and Compliance”

Cost-effectively and efficiently managing ever-growing unstructured data stores is the next frontier that nearly every organization faces in storage management. But as they do so, they are coming to the realization that the IT staff who manage the storage and business owners who generate the data are not sufficiently engaged with one another to achieve these goals. Achieving a more structured, productive engagement between IT and business owners is what today's Symantec Data Insight 3.0 release enables. (read more)

One of the most exciting and terrifying times in the lifecycle of a company is transitioning from a small to mid-range or mid-range to enterprise sized company. Well led companies that survive those transitions have often been planning for the occasion for some time. The longer they have been planning the more likely they've become aware of the need for long term archiving. Of everything. (read more)

Information managers can expect data storage companies to drive significant campaigns around Big Data as we enter 2012. Storage is the least of anyone's concerns, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report Big Data: Harnessing a game-changing asset. Information Governance in 2012 requires Data Science strategy and practitioners be added to all business teams. (read more)

Consumerization of content consumption models exposes opportunities to incorporate business process metadata with Big Data. Consumerization includes proliferation of social networks, content syndication and mobile devices, such as Apple iPAD, Samsung Tablet, etc. Consumerization of content merging with Enterprise Business Big Data is a challenge best met by standardized content interfaces. (read more)

On average most mid-sized companies are not bothering with Information Management as a means to mitigate e-discovery costs. That is a conclusion reached by comparing Symantec's 2011 Information Retention and eDiscovery Survey announced in October 2011 with the research completed by King and Spalding, LLP for the Duke Law Journal December 2010. (read more)

Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and data storage providers alike have become almost transfixed by storage system features that control storage capacity growth. Yet there are SMBs that possess applications such as medical imaging, healthcare records and video surveillance who need storage solutions that prioritize data life cycle management over controlling data growth. It is these SMBs who stand to benefit the most from Imation's recent acquisition of ProStor Systems and its InfiniVault platform. (read more)

Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and data storage providers alike have become almost transfixed by storage system features that control storage capacity growth. Yet there are SMBs that possess applications such as medical imaging, healthcare records and video surveillance who need storage solutions that prioritize data life cycle management over controlling data growth. It is these SMBs who stand to benefit the most from Imation's recent acquisition of ProStor Systems and its InfiniVault platform. (read more)

Over the years big data has crept into the everyday life of systems administrators. Attempts to solve the big data problem in both block and file storage emerged as data management software. While data management software struggled to get a footing, deduplication and compression took off stunting data management software's growth. Deduplication and compression technologies have well known capabilities in both the storage and information disciplines. However, they differ in a significant way. These technologies do not ease the burden of information management. (read more)

Microsoft SharePoint is fast replacing network file servers as the preferred tool for information sharing and workplace collaboration within enterprises. But as that occurs, the same set of data management issues that exist on network file servers are re-surfacing in these environments. By Symantec now extending the capabilities of its Data Insight to reach into SharePoint, enterprises can be assured that they are only keeping the data that they need in SharePoint while confidently archiving, deleting or re-assigning the rest. (read more)

To many enterprise organizations, the question of whether or not they will store backup data in a cloud is already a foregone conclusion: it will be stored there. But that does not mean they should abandon tape in their new cloud-centered environment. Practical use cases for tape abound since tape enables enterprises to keep a firm, long-term grip on data that they temporarily or permanently store in the cloud. (read more)

Back in October 2010, CommVault introduced Simpana 9 but did so in a two-fold manner. It first announced Simpana 9's core data management features on October 5. Then, a few weeks later on October 19, CommVault introduced Simpana 9's enhanced information governance capabilities. It was during this latter presentation that a number of statements were made by CommVault's Senior Director of Information Access Management, Simon Taylor, about Simpana 9's enhanced information governance capabilities that I asked him to elaborate upon. (read more)

The situation confronting a VMware and Windows architect that I recently spoke with is probably one to which many system administrators can relate. On one hand, he had a requirement to make patches and updates to his company's systems to keep them in compliance with PCI DSS regulations. On the other, making such changes could result in system downtime and disrupt his company's operations (i.e. - stop its flow of income.) To resolve it, he turned to a new technology called the Thin Capture appliance from Kubisys. (read more)

As more organizations consolidate servers and create private storage clouds to store the data associated with these servers, the need to lock down that data to meet emerging data governance and eDiscovery demands has grown more acute. It is for reasons like these that features such as 3PAR's new Virtual Lock are becoming more sought after on storage systems. (read more)

When it comes to implementing any form of data reduction (compression or deduplication) on primary storage, many companies are still reticent to do so. So it was with some interest that I spoke to Mike Power, the CEO of Neuxpower, whose company is having success in not just delivering data reduction of files on primary storage but doing so leveraging lossy technology. (read more)

It's easy for those new to VMware, or even for those who have used VMware for awhile, to assume that all VMware backup solutions provide similar functionality. While it might be true to say that all of these solutions protect VMs, their similarities in many cases end there. Among their differences, two of the largest focus on how they manage VMware backups and the ensuing archives that are created which is where software like VizionCore's vRanger Pro stands out. (read more)

I am playing the role of road warrior this week by attending two conferences. The first two days of this week I was attending Storage Networking World (SNW) 2010 in Orlando, FL, and then today I hopped on a direct flight Las Vegas to catch one day of the Symantec Vision conference. (read more)

It is time for organizations to heed the calls to take a proactive position on data management and preservation. While the sirens have been wailing for a number of years about the risks of not putting in place a comprehensive data management solution, too many organizations have failed to heed these warnings. Now a recent landmark opinion has dramatically altered the data management and preservation landscape by making it a necessity for organizations to implement a comprehensive, singular data management solution like CommVault® Simpana®. (read more)

Best practices for data management call for organizations to definitely not keep data that they do not need. On the surface, this approach sounds good but as organizations face growing stores of inactive data, they may not know who owns the data, what its value is, what risks it presents or which applications within the organization need to access the data? (read more)

Over the last few years I thought I had seen just about every (well, maybe not every but most) automated eDiscovery, data classification, data management, data preservation and search engine technology on the market. But the introduction of today's Data Insight technology from Symantec into Data Loss Protection (DLP) software seeks to address possibly one of the most basic data classification questions of them all: Who owns the data? (read more)

The issue of attorney-client privilege remains one of the most revered privileges that the American judicial system bestows upon clients as it enables any person to communicate open and honestly with his/her attorney. Now this right is under scrutiny as keeping communications between a defendant and his/her attorney has become difficult to achieve due to the increased role that email plays as a form of primary communication medium between them. (read more)

IT's role in the enterprise has changed dramatically in just the last few years - most notably in its responsibilities and workloads. No longer is it enough for IT to manage data protection recovery, networks, systems, and storage, but its responsibilities have expanded as it has merged with other operational and strategic business functions. This is forcing IT to develop a holistic understanding of the needs of the entire organization to ensure that the technology it deploys meets those needs as well as aligns with the larger company strategy. (read more)

Organizations across the United States have steadily felt the sting of legal action involving eDisocovery as they are quickly discovering that it is no easy feat to comply with mandates such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP). This is resulting in mounting sanctions and a steadily decreasing patience in courts towards eDiscovery mistakes. However state and local government agencies were conspicuously absent from this steady stream of eDiscovery rulings. (read more)

No company regardless of its size is immune from the possibility of an eDiscovery. But even as companies look to respond to eDiscovery demands placed on them by rulings such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), an equally vexing problem that they face is making sense of their growing mountain of email data. (read more)

I recently had an interesting conversation with an IT Director who is currently working in health care. We were discussing how his job has evolved with the complexity associated with EMR (electronic medical record) systems and how IT in health care has been especially burdened. Beyond just playing technology catch up, there are numerous regulatory and litigation threats now hovering over it. He specifically pointed to litigation as one area that represents a growing risk to his company's business and how responding to eDiscovery requests for electronic information has become a huge burden. (read more)

Smart managers always put a large emphasis on automating whatever processes they can within their organizations and for good reasons: processes become more predictable, there is a reduced chance of human error and ultimately the business is more successful. However businesses are finding out that it may not be in their best interest to automate data classification and that for now courts still prefer people to computers when it comes to performing this particular task. (read more)