Not all heroes wear capes in today’s digital economy

By Matthew Johnston August 2, 2017

Data breaches are estimated to cost a business US$4 million, on average
53% of companies can only withstand one hour of downtime before being permanently affected

Not all heroes wear capes in today’s digital economy

IMAGINE a reality where darkness cloaks the world. Where backstreet alleys are the latest setting for the depths of sophisticated crime; where lives of innocents are under threat, and evil threatens to triumph over good. In today’s digital reality, this is not far from the truth.

For organisations today, a single catastrophe may spell disaster for the unprepared. Data breaches are estimated to cost a business US$4 million, on average – hardly a nominal amount.

Take the recent WannaCry and Petya/GoldenEye attacks as cases in point, they were wake-up calls for the unprotected, to the tune of US$1 billion in damages and counting just for the WannaCry incident alone.

Managing data in today’s digital economy is no mean feat. To stay vigilant and to navigate the treacherous cyber landscape, organisations need to understand the value of their data, wherever they reside, to stay agile, compliant, secure and competitive.

But, what if, we all had a superhero, bearing the latest cape or iron suit, to save the day?

Our everyday superheroes might not look as good as Clark Kent, but their mission remains the same – to know and use data for strategic decision making. And what of the qualities of our seemly unlikely hero? They’re not that different from our fictional comic book heroes – strength, perception and dexterity.

Agility with dexterity

With the ability to catch a speeding bullet, withstand extreme temperatures and save a damsel in distress, the Man of Steel never fails to save the day.

Much like the Man of Steel, succeeding in today’s world of managing data requires the traits of agility, dexterity and adaptability, which ultimately determines how quickly an organisation can use data to make that important decision or just simply have information available to users in times of crisis.

And this comes as no surprise. Studies have shown that 53% of companies can only withstand one hour of downtime before adverse effects permanently manifest in the business.

What’s worse, beyond the monetary damages incurred, an outage also causes inconvenience, and potentially people’s lives as well, when breaches occur to critical national infrastructure.

Dexterity and agility help minimise these unexpected downtimes caused by cybersecurity issues, resulting in a minimal loss of assets, akin to a superhero ensuring the peace and harmony of the cities that he has sworn to protect.

In addition, just as a superhero brings confidence to the city he protects, dexterity and agility enable businesses to take swift decisive action, knowing they are prepared.

Security with precognition

A 360 point of view, wherever data lives.

See-all, hear-all and know-all – these are the traits of the Man of Steel that enable him to have a bird’s eye view of world issues, enabling him to nip trouble in the bud, before it brews into a catastrophe.

Today’s data management professionals can see this digital world and nip potential issues in the bud – just like how Commvault can identify issues with its data management solutions before it takes root.

The transparency and single view of the processes allows data management professionals to flag issues during backup processes and fix it before it grows.

While the Man of Steel cannot prevent any attacks, he responds quickly to save people in sticky situations.

Data management professionals can identify specific storage and recovery requirements in different situations, prior to any attacks.

Data stores are also encrypted, providing protection to the platform architecture and reduce the possibility of having the back-up held as ransom during breaches.

Compliance with strength

The migration of data servers to cloud is no easy feat, much like a superhero migrating citizens between cities in an event of danger.

In the digital world, today’s modern superhero can move data away from threats as well – by migrating a company’s infrastructure from on-premises, to the cloud.

With the increasing complexity, and volume of data collected by businesses due to the growing amount of devices connected by the Internet of Things, cloud migration is the smart choice.

It enables data to be agile and selectively retrieved, and it is available anytime, anywhere, and across various platforms.

This trend is already occurring, according to IDC. Cloud computing services are projected to grow at 30.6 percent through 2019, with more companies steady embracing cloud adoption for ease of access of data and backup management.

That means a superhero needs to understand its citizens to get to the root of the issues, and answer to the needs of the city.

With data seated safely in the cloud, information fluidity, accessibility and scalability enabled through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) allows workload portability, enabling adaptability through services such as virtual machine compatibility, analytics engine implementation, and even cloud-to-cloud migration.

Knowing your data well also allow you to stay complaint, amidst the shifting data laws happening around the world due to increasing threats in the cyber space.

The superhero we need and deserve

With companies transforming rapidly in today’s day and age, data is more than just a tool; it is a company’s strongest asset.

Much like a city facing multiple threats from every possible direction, an organisation needs to understand the importance of having a strong data management solution to protect their assets from dangers beyond their control.

Today’s superheroes might not wear capes, but they possess the same resolve, will and responsibility to protect the assets and infrastructure that they have been tasked to defend.

When they are the most effective, our superheroes work tirelessly to add context to an organisation’s greatest asset, data, and make it look effortless.

Just as a safe city enjoys daily peace as its new norm, be the superhero that empowers your business to be agile, compliant, secure and competitive and makes data mastery business as usual.

Matthew Johnston is area vice president for Asean & Korea at Commvault.