Kevin McIsaac

As discussed in “Backup is not Archive!”1 all IT organisations should evaluate the deployment of an archival platform to reduce storage costs and improve unstructured data management. Our 2008 survey found archiving in ANZ organisations to be immature and with many risks. A follow-up survey in 2011, and on-going client discussion, shows this situation has improved as evidenced by higher implementation success rates and customer satisfaction scores. We found the products most commonly used in production were Symantec Enterprise Vault and Commvault Simpana. These products were very well rated by the organisations that used them while EMC on the other hand continues to struggle.

The foundation of any BYO device initiative is a robust BYO device policy. The policy must set the boundaries for acceptable use, costs and security. Ensure device security is driven by business stakeholders and is based on pragmatic risk analysis rather than technical concerns from IT staff, or FUD from vendors who are anxious to sell their wares. Robust policy, strong corporate culture and proper training can be more effective than technology in securing corporate data and controlling costs and risk. Use policy, culture and training to drive compliance, minimising the need for complex and expensive technological controls.

The Cloud is a significant long term trend that you ignore at your peril. Like the introduction of the PC and Open Systems in the ‘80s/‘90s, you can either selectively embrace the Cloud or find yourself bypassed by the business units who will introduce Cloud based solutions to suit their tactical needs and political agendas. Unless you embrace the cloud, albeit in a...

The idea of Bring-Your-Own (BYO) Laptop has been bandied about for the last seven years, but it is not as common as implied by the press. Few ANZ organisations have BYO Laptops, however some have implemented BYO smartphones and many intend to do so in the next 18 months. The driver of BYO device in the organisation is not avoidance of the capital costs but rather the need to accommodate users’ expectations of technology, which have been significantly increased by the consumerisation of IT, and largely driven by the iPhone and iPad.

Oracle will continue to excel in the Application, Middleware and Database markets, but it also intends to radically transform and simplify IT infrastructure. Oracle’s strategy is to eliminate complexity, create significantly greater business value and reduce infrastructure costs using an Integrated Systems approach. The objective is to enable customers to focus on applications, instead of infrastructure, in the hope they consume more Oracle software. IT executives should keep abreast of Oracle’s infrastructure innovations, as well as the competitors’, and be prepared to rethink their existing infrastructure approach if an Integrated System can create a significant new opportunity for the business.

Leading IT organisations now recognise that selecting and integrating a mix of best-of-breed servers, storage and networks no longer adds value to their organisation. Instead they are purchasing Integrated Systems from a single vendor that eliminates the cost and complexity of integrating these components; lowers the integration and support risks; and reduces the time to deliver a working solution. To make this paradigm shift most organisations will need to change the kind of relationship they have with their infrastructure vendors from a purely transactional supplier to a long term strategic partner. For many IT, and vendor staff, this will be a difficult and traumatic transition.

The IPv6 day in June attracted significant media attention and raised the profile of IPv6 again. As is typical, the media latched on to the “bad news” and ran headlines stating that the Internet is running out of addresses! While this is correct, most ANZ organisations will not experience any significant impact and the burden of supporting IPv6 will largely fall to the telecommunications vendors, or other organisations that run large public networks. IT executives need to check that their organisation has a strategy for dealing with IPv6, largely at their gateways systems, and ensure that this strategy does not get blown out of proportion.

VMware’s vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) is the beginning of the end of the modular storage market. While built for the low end of the market, the VSA will scale-up over time and disrupt the modular storage market. The key benefits of the VSA in a VMware cluster are: lower infrastructure complexity, lower capital costs, greater workload agility and reduced IT skills. SMBs should consider the VSA at their next major infrastructure refresh. Enterprises should experiment with a standalone environment, such as dev/test or a new departmental application, and become familiar with this technology. Enterprise should then create an adoption strategy to replace modular storage in their VMware server cluster as the VSA matures and scales up .

With most organisations now completely dependent on IT systems for their day-to-day operations, and ongoing viability, ensuring the availability and recoverability of these systems is one of the IT organisation’s most important responsibilities. However, like many other forms of insurance, disaster recovery planning is not seen to be urgent by IT or the business, and often fails to meet the requirements of the business. IT executives need to look for the early warning signs that their disaster recovery plan is compromised, and if found, take action to defuse this ticking time-bomb that could blow up their career.

Most branch office data is poorly protected by the organisation’s existing backup strategy. Recent improvements in network connectivity, and the commoditisation of advanced deduplication techniques, fundamentally change the landscape and make highly automated, reliable and cost effective branch office affordable to most organisations. Organisations with extensive branch office data that is not adequately protected should revaluate their branch office backup strategy.