FountainBlue’s May 11 High Tech Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Trends in Storage and Security Innovations. The notes below are from the conversation with our two panels - see below for speaker list. We were fortunate to have such a wide range of panelists looking through from different slices of the storage and security issues, and articulately sharing their direct experiences and perspectives as well as their thoughts on trends and directions. Some of the big-picture take-aways included: • The genie is out of the bottle. It’s not a matter of whether you allow users within or outside a company to gather huge volumes of data, host it on a cloud, network devices and appliances, etc. It’s a matter of accepting that this is happening and will continue to happen at a more accelerated rate, and encouraging everyone to best manage accordingly by putting together processes and procedures, educating the users, and dealing with issues immediately as they arise. • The cloud is here to stay, and will be more pervasive. Storage, hardware, software and other solutions will be better managed and more secure on the cloud, and the cloud will be an integral part of the evolution of technology. It is already a given, not a debate. The question is where will it go from here? • Those who serve customers best and most efficiently will win. There are many factors leading to the proliferation of big data – from social media to the millennial generation to the predictive analysis needs of advertisers, to the number of devices per person etc. Those who don’t fight the data explosion reality, and work with it to better serve and protect users will continue to grow. • It’s all about the user. You could build these great technology solutions, have the best plans, policies and mandates, have great laws with consequences, etc., but the human factor, the choices each individual user makes around storage and security will determine how secure and available her/his data, and that of the network is. • Work with an IT team (as customers, partners or staff), who accepts the realities about data proliferation and the data-access and security needs of the user. Even though the network borders are essentially gone, and control is an illusion, the next generation IT directors will get a sense of their assets from a service perspective and understand that the basic network and application hygiene is even more important and foundational. They will work with you to build resilience inside your environment and educate your people. • It will take a collaboration of government, corporations, users and customers to develop storage and security management standards and solutions which would address our customers’ need for data real-time and the security and privacy of these same customers. There was a repeated theme about the huge volume of big data out there, and how it is tied to the need for both privacy and security. As FaceBook CEO Mark Zuckerman said, ‘one is just the other side of the coin for the other, you can’t have just one.’ So here are some suggestions from the panelists for proactively managing that balance: • Accept that users will want to have freedom to do what they want with the tools that they want, within and outside work, and plan your storage and security optimization goals accordingly. • Have standards and policies in place for what hardware and software is acceptable and track and monitor who is doing what within the network. • Educate your users about ways they can potentially compromise your network or systems. • Know what your assets are and what needs to be protected and set up systems and processes which would alert you quickly should these assets be in any way threatened and respond quickly to these alerts. • Think not just that data *might* get onto the cloud, but that it will likely get there, whether or not corporate policies approve it. Work with your users to do it elegantly so you best manage risk, and best plan for scalability. • People have already accepted that there are volumes of data of different formats which are difficult to process and analyze. The next story will be how fast can you get the data, and how much will it cost to get it? Those who can efficiently deliver this to the most niche customers will win. • Work with the policies of each individual government, which has real borders, and work to develop international standards for data storage and security.
Trends in Data and Security Innovations
Trends in Data and Security Innovations
Trends in Data and Security Innovations
FountainBlue’s May 11 High Tech Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Trends in Storage and Security Innovations. The notes below are from the conversation with our two panels - see below for speaker list. We were fortunate to have such a wide range of panelists looking through from different slices of the storage and security issues, and articulately sharing their direct experiences and perspectives as well as their thoughts on trends and directions. Some of the big-picture take-aways included: • The genie is out of the bottle. It’s not a matter of whether you allow users within or outside a company to gather huge volumes of data, host it on a cloud, network devices and appliances, etc. It’s a matter of accepting that this is happening and will continue to happen at a more accelerated rate, and encouraging everyone to best manage accordingly by putting together processes and procedures, educating the users, and dealing with issues immediately as they arise. • The cloud is here to stay, and will be more pervasive. Storage, hardware, software and other solutions will be better managed and more secure on the cloud, and the cloud will be an integral part of the evolution of technology. It is already a given, not a debate. The question is where will it go from here? • Those who serve customers best and most efficiently will win. There are many factors leading to the proliferation of big data – from social media to the millennial generation to the predictive analysis needs of advertisers, to the number of devices per person etc. Those who don’t fight the data explosion reality, and work with it to better serve and protect users will continue to grow. • It’s all about the user. You could build these great technology solutions, have the best plans, policies and mandates, have great laws with consequences, etc., but the human factor, the choices each individual user makes around storage and security will determine how secure and available her/his data, and that of the network is. • Work with an IT team (as customers, partners or staff), who accepts the realities about data proliferation and the data-access and security needs of the user. Even though the network borders are essentially gone, and control is an illusion, the next generation IT directors will get a sense of their assets from a service perspective and understand that the basic network and application hygiene is even more important and foundational. They will work with you to build resilience inside your environment and educate your people. • It will take a collaboration of government, corporations, users and customers to develop storage and security management standards and solutions which would address our customers’ need for data real-time and the security and privacy of these same customers. There was a repeated theme about the huge volume of big data out there, and how it is tied to the need for both privacy and security. As FaceBook CEO Mark Zuckerman said, ‘one is just the other side of the coin for the other, you can’t have just one.’ So here are some suggestions from the panelists for proactively managing that balance: • Accept that users will want to have freedom to do what they want with the tools that they want, within and outside work, and plan your storage and security optimization goals accordingly. • Have standards and policies in place for what hardware and software is acceptable and track and monitor who is doing what within the network. • Educate your users about ways they can potentially compromise your network or systems. • Know what your assets are and what needs to be protected and set up systems and processes which would alert you quickly should these assets be in any way threatened and respond quickly to these alerts. • Think not just that data *might* get onto the cloud, but that it will likely get there, whether or not corporate policies approve it. Work with your users to do it elegantly so you best manage risk, and best plan for scalability. • People have already accepted that there are volumes of data of different formats which are difficult to process and analyze. The next story will be how fast can you get the data, and how much will it cost to get it? Those who can efficiently deliver this to the most niche customers will win. • Work with the policies of each individual government, which has real borders, and work to develop international standards for data storage and security.