18 Years of Data Protection

Submitted by Giles Westie

3/5/2022

In 2004 I started selling Data Protection/Backup Solutions. I just kind of fell into the space. It was a couple years out of college, and I applied on Monster.com to this startup company in Burlington, MA named Imceda Software. We sold a MS SQL Backup & compression solution called SQL LiteSpeed. The product allowed SQL DBA’s to backup data faster thus shrinking their backup window, control their own backups/restores, save valuable disk space, and most importantly restore faster. I learned a lot at Imceda about working at a high pressure, venture backed software company and then after one year moved on to another Data Protection software company to start over.

Fast forward to 2022: I’m the Founder, CEO, and Head of Sales for a company that focuses on Data Center & Cloud technologies - DataPivot Tech. We do a lot of things (“All Things Data”) but specifically maintain a strategic focus on data protection. At this point, DataPivot has built that focus into a competitive advantage/moat. I firmly believe that no other solution provider has our level of focus, expertise, and innovative workflow except us; No one can deliver the outcomes that we deliver as efficiently as us and no one has our versatility or flexible solution options.

Enterprise Backup has always been thought of as a complicated, annoying, necessary evil of the Enterprise/Data Center. It’s a mouthful to say and has multiple different names - “Backup & Recovery.” Enterprise Data Protection & Data Management Solutions. Disaster Recovery. Data Protection. Business Continuity, Etc. It’s confusing before you even start and has always been the Data Center’s thankless job.

However… it’s extremely valuable when you need it. Kind of like a good insurance policy or an air-tight business continuity plan. Remember 50% off the companies in the world trade centers in 2001 went out of business. Lot’s of them couldn’t get their data back and thus failed to exist much longer.. What is the cost of down time? What is the cost of losing your best customers? What is the cost of lost data or having to pay the ransom?

When I first started in “Backup,” AWS, MS Azure, and GCP didn’t exist. Ransomware didn’t exist. VMware, let alone Kubernetes and Docker didn’t exist. Databases were far smaller and unstructured data totals were fractions of todays’ totals. I’d be lying if I said SaaS didn’t exist because we used Salesforce.com, but SaaS wasn’t nearly as prevalent yet in the enterprise.

Back in 2010 to 2012 coming out of the financial crisis, I really struggled to get people to spend money on “Backup.” A better way to manage and protect data. Nope. All the budgets would be spent on Primary Storage, Replication, and VMware. The Backup solution budget was non-existent. If it was budgeted for, it would most likely get cut and punted to the following fiscal year. Backup was a complex, annoying, afterthought and companies wouldn’t invest in it.

Here in 2022, it’s never been more important. Now the data sizes are higher, the complexity is higher, and the stakes are higher because businesses are even more reliant on technology solutions being operational 24/7/365. Now the possibility of hackers taking your business hostage from 800 or 8,000 miles away is an ominous and constant threat, and it has become a boardroom level discussion on how to mitigate this threat. The hackers keep getting smarter and more sophisticated and are going after your data, your systems, and especially your backups. .

I could write 10 blogs on 10 different aspects of “Backup” /Data Protection at this point, but I’ll end this one with what I’ve learned over the last 18 years that is relevant to 2022. When thinking about your Enterprise Backup & Recovery Strategy, here are some things to help with your thought process and selection process:

  1. Enterprise Backup & Recovery has never been more important than it is now.

  2. Public Cloud, SaaS applications, Containers, and Ransomware have broken the legacy backup solutions’ continued viability and if you’re running a legacy product that hasn’t kept up with the pace of innovation and technology sprawl, it is most efficient to start over with a full refresh.

  3. If done correctly, Enterprise Backup will be 1 for 1 as complex as the environment you’re responsible for protecting. If you have a vanilla simple environment than your data protection solution should be relatively simple and easy. If you have a complex environment, with many types of applications, databases, OS’s, of all ages across 13 Data Centers and the Public Cloud- then your backup environment is going to be, and should be, 1 for 1 that complex. This complexity can however be simplified, automated, and designed correctly to be as efficient and easy as possible despite the complexity of your environment. Yet there are no short cuts.

  4. Be wary of vendors who try to oversimplify it and who don’t worry about the details. The devil is in the details. It’s easy to buy any solution off the shelf, rack it and stack it, and then after the fact realize it doesn’t meet all your needs or there is some type of catch 22, show stopper, or caveat that you immediately run into even though it was billed as “an easy, simple solution” and the new greatest tech. There are no shortcuts.

  5. Begin with the end in mind, write down your goals/requirements/desired outcomes and don’t settle.

  6. Don’t buy the PowerPoint slides being pitched by some companies. Don’t let their motivation and goals supersede yours. Seek out a solution that adheres to your requirements and the precise outcome you’re trying to achieve.

  7. Don’t get lost in what the product says it does, focus on not only that but the attributes of the solution and how easily, efficiently, reliably, and viably it achieves them. Example: Public Cloud Integration. Some companies write to AWS S3 but it’s inefficient in every aspect including Disaster Recovery so it’s not truly viable or ideal.

  8. Sometimes the best marketed product with the best mousetrap ends up getting bought by enterprises and they end up having buyers’ remorse. Don’t forget that the operations team has to support this product and the engineering/architecture team should think about the business requirements and ongoing operational support prior to selecting a solution. They should also think about unforeseen cost overruns that are hidden until it happens.

  9. A good Backup System is Product, People, and Process. If you don’t have the right people and process, then the very best backup solution money can buy is not going to be optimal. It’s like owning anything that you want to keep nice, it needs to be operated and maintained properly. A fourth P could be added, “Partner.” Having a good partner to provide you with the cheat codes and their expertise helps out a lot with the whole equation.

  10. SaaS Data Protection is becoming more and more critical and highly recommended depending on the use-case/requirements.

  11. The solution should have an excellent Ransomware Posture given today’s business climate and threat landscape. Immutability, Security, Audit Trail, Permissions, Alerting, Reporting, Etc.

  12. High quality support when you need it is critical. Whether it be from your backup software vendor or your technology partner, it’s worth it’s weight in gold when you need it.

Today, DataPivot helps enterprises around the globe solve their data protection challenges. Back in 2004, I never thought I’d become a backup nerd or “Enterprise Backup Consultant” but here I am and I’m really enjoying it.

Cheers… Here is to your data protection success!

Giles Westie