Entries categorized under “Information Classification”

Today EMC announced the availability of a new online file sharing (often referred to as 'sync and share') solution that is aimed at meeting the needs of enterprises. EMC is the first single vendor to offer a comprehensive, end-to-end solution in the file-sync-and-share marketplace. The new EMC solution provides an enterprise grade file-sync-and-share infrastructure from a single vendor. It combats enterprise data leakage risks while helping organizations realize the advantages of increased productivity and collaboration that sync and share enables. EMC backs the enterprise grade moniker with their professional services and 24x7 global support. The solution combines the simplicity and scalability of Isilon scale-out storage with Syncplicity's sync and share administrative and policy control tools. (read more)

Bring your own device (BYOD) file-sync-and-sharing has exploded in 2012. There are over forty (40) companies offering at least one product to organizations of all sizes. Over half of those companies offer a consumer grade version of their file-sync-and-share. With so many options, CIOs are unable to focus on choosing solutions to enable their organization's workforce while managing data leakage. CIOs can't choose products because the market hasn't been consistently defined. In an effort to define a Buyer's Guide, DCIG is conducting a survey for Mobile Device and Cloud File Sharing. (read more)

Corporate data making its way to public clouds through the use of consumer-based or department selected tools, is a growing concern for many organizations. So is the cost of backup and storage of ever-increasing volumes of data. Cleversafe and Mezeo Software offer solutions to address these concerns, and the two companies recently partnered to provide information technology (IT) managers with an enterprise-class secure file-sync-and-share solution combined with a limitless-scale data storage solution. (read more)

Many organizations are discovering that their users, via a proliferation of wireless devices, and easy access to consumer-based storage clouds, are precariously storing corporate data on pubic clouds. Addressing this growing problem, Dell recently certified Mezeo Software, a provider of the storage services layer for cloud-scale applications, as a partner in the Dell DX Object Storage Technology Partner Program. (read more)

Earlier this year, DCIG interviewed the executive team at GroupLogic. GroupLogic shared with us how they approach the market for "enterprise file sharing" or what DCIG has been calling File-Sync-and-Share. In addition, we had the privilege of talking to Chris Broderick, CEO of GroupLogic who covered some of the company's history. (read more)

Organizations choosing file-sync-and-share solutions are presented with many options. Buyers and sellers are inquiring with DCIG about "Enterprise Dropbox" options. A popular request is what to look for when selecting a solution. Enterprises and consumers require enhanced features beyond the ease of use and standard consumer capabilities; they require something that these public cloud solutions cannot deliver - security and control. (read more)

Controlling storage costs as unstructured data (files) grows remains a key concern for IT but unmanaged data growth has other implications for the organization such as compliance burden, security risk and operational costs. Further, as regulations become more defined and numerous, the holes associated with relying solely on looking at their file metadata to determine which data to retain and for how long to keep it become more pronounced. This is why more organizations are turning to Symantec's Data Insight to keep their storage costs under control while ensuring their data meets this complex set of regulatory requirements. (read more)

The move from NAS to Microsoft SharePoint is in full swing in many organizations as they look to leverage SharePoint to better track and manage their various documents. Yet what they are discovering is that the same fundamental questions that they had regarding file ownership and usage in NAS environments persist even after SharePoint is implemented. This is prompting organizations to once again turn to Symantec Data Insight to understand data usage and ownership in their SharePoint environments. (read more)

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)

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)

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)

Upon arriving at Symantec Vision on Wednesday morning, it quickly became evident that the messaging at this year's event focused on how the business world is shifting from a Systems-Centric View (policies and governance is done according to the physical devices on which they reside such as servers, networking and storage) of data management to an Information Centric View (policies and governance are set independent of what storage device on which the data resides). (read more)

Obama's administration allocated $17B of the recent (Feb 09) stimulus spending package to healthcare, for the purpose of building better healthcare infrastructure. The goal of the new infrastructure is to move patient records online and enable a ubiquitous Electronic Health Record (EHR) to be shared universally among hospital systems. Obama himself promised a total of $50B in spending for this purpose during his campaign. Some experts believe that even more is to come. But, now that some of the money is allocated, how are healthcare institutions getting access to it and what are they doing with it? (read more)

In 1978 the Presidential Records Act (PRA) was passed which fundamentally changed the landscape of Presidential records by moving them from a classification of personal information to the public domain. The PRA is explicit in describing that retention of records created by the President of the United States as well as the Vice President is the responsibility of the President. The PRA guides the President in how records should be handled and guides the steps in the proper destruction of records and how they are retained to comply with this federal statute. (read more)

The recent announcement that CA acquired Orchestria to extend its identity and access management portfolio to include data loss prevention raises some key questions about exactly what problems CA hopes to solve. While DCIG sees the value in companies acquiring and merging with other companies to solve specific strategic problems, this one left us scratching our heads a bit. After all, wasn't it Bear Stearns who back in 2005 selected Orchestria to oversee its electronic communications? But now, in the light of day, really how much benefit did its implementation of Orchestria provide Bear Stearns in light of its recent public failure? (read more)

Today's release of CommVault Simpana 8 continues to reflect CommVault's commitment to deliver enterprise data protection and management using a single product with multiple application modules. Yet it is Simpana 8's new global block-based data deduplication feature and new ability to deduplicate data stored to tape that is likely to raise excitement. Making these features integral to Simpana 8, CommVault does more than just give enterprises another deduplication option or simply lower tape costs. Instead it starts to put CommVault on a collision course with deduplicating storage appliances and even traditional tape devices while giving organizations new reason to ponder their longer term deduplication strategy. (read more)

As analysts within the electronically stored information (ESI) space, DCIG pays close attention to not only features and benefits of specific products and solutions but also monitors other articles, blogs, and columns in the broader market place about specific vendors. In instances where allegations are made, it then tries to sort fact from fiction and present a more complete picture. Recently, some allegations about Autonomy have surfaced that sparked interest at DCIG as to their accuracy. (read more)

It all comes down to a vision of an underlying technology platform that dramatically changes the way in which we interact with information and computers: where computers adapt to our world rather than the other way around. Because we use a Meaning Based Computing platform, our technology enables people to interact with information ideas and understand their relationships to each other, no matter how they are expressed and no matter what the format. Based on that understanding, Autonomy's solutions process information and perform sophisticated analysis operations that provide a tremendous advantage in overcoming the challenges of managing electronic data for eDiscovery, information & records management, and compliance. Corporations want a single platform and a single vendor to rely on to minimize the footprint in the organization and to build a partnership with, they do not want to run a hundred searches with a hundred different platforms, even though they may have more than a hundred different varieties of ESI. (read more)

The reliance that organizations have upon electronically stored information (ESI) is phenomenal. Not only is ESI the life-giving blood that courses through corporations, ESI is becoming more important in safeguarding and reducing risk as organizations deal with increased litigation. eDiscovery is the process of searching, locating, and securing ESI that is used as evidence in litigation. Any company not complying with a request to perform eDiscovery can incur costly and potentially disastrous side effects. (read more)

There are many more enterprise applications that can be dual purposed for eDiscovery and business benefits. Desktop search can help users find and designate ESI. Firewall and spam systems can actually be used to collect IM conversations. Content Management Systems expand the potential search/preservation criteria and can decrease the potential volume of ESI by enabling active expiry of unnecessary items. The important thing is to think beyond point solutions and bring legal, business and IT to the table to extract the greatest value from the 'cost of doing business' in America. (read more)

The recent Quon v. Arch Wireless decision has raised many questions about a company's ability and right to monitor employee communications. Fortunately, a deeper read shows that the real issues centered around the employee's reasonable expectation of privacy, which a well documented and communicated policy solves handily. So an employee might ask, "I know that the company owns my email, but do they really read it?" (read more)