We hear you! Published Technical Collateral Survey Results
Want to know what your peers in the information management industry are thinking about, how they use published Veritas technical collateral, and what they find the most valuable? We did too. So, we asked several industry professionals for feedback, and here is what they said. Thank you to everyone who participated in our CPEP survey! Understanding customer experience The importance of understanding the various experiences of Veritas customers spurred the NetBackup Technical Marketing Engineering Team (TME) to launch a survey asking customers and partners about their use of technical collateral (e.g., technical briefs, white papers, videos, etc.). Here’s an overview of the feedback we received: Top 3 types of preferred collateral: Technical brief User guide White paper/video Top 3 go-to places to find collateral: Google Veritas.com Veritas SORT (Services and Operations Readiness Tool) Top 3 collateral topics of most interest: How to guides Feature overviews Installation/upgrade support Top 3 core themes of most interest: On prem workload protection Cyber resiliency/security/ransomware Cloud Top 3 represented industries in the responses: Telecommunications, Technology, Internet & Electronics Finance & Financial Services Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals GEO distribution of the respondents: 45% AMS (Americas region) 36% EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa region) 19% APJ (Asia Pacific Japan region) The majority indicated their preferred type of collateral (e.g., white paper, video) depends on the context (e.g., deep dive, general overview, troubleshooting, etc.). The majority agree that collateral has helped in decision-making processes for purchasing Veritas products. We also conducted follow up interviews with some of the survey respondents who stated that they go to Google first, then the Veritas support portal, and SORT and VOX for specific uses (e.g., compatibility checks and seeing what others are talking about and interested in). Participants stated that they saw great value in CPEP and utilize documentation mostly to review in-depth information on specific features, or occasionally videos for general overviews (e.g., on the Veritas V-Bytes YouTube playlist). What does this mean for you? Do these preferences align with yours? Veritas is focused on adapting to your requirements with a powerful and continually evolving suite of solutions. Start a conversation with our product teams. Hyper-converged solutions such as the Veritas Access Appliance fit perfectly in the healthcare and public sector space, and new features (e.g., deduplication) in NetBackup 10.X take the company’s 30+ years of experience in data protection and puts it into a brand-new playing field. Check out the full results here. Feel free to visit cpep.veritas.com if you would like to participate in similar studies in the future.Top 5 things our customers are thinking about
Want to know what your peers in the information management industry are thinking about and planning for? We did too. So, we asked a bunch of industry professionals what was top of mind right now, and here is what they said. Many thanks to all of you who participated in our CPEP survey!Top 5 things our customers are thinking about
Want to know what your peers in the information management industry are thinking about and planning for? We did too. So, we asked a bunch of industry professionals what was top of mind right now, and here is what they said. Many thanks to all of you who participated in our CPEP survey! Understanding customer priorities The importance of understanding the top priorities Veritas customers face today spurred the CPEP team to launch a survey asking customers and partners about the key industry trends in which they’re most interested. More than 60 customers and partners responded to the survey (11 percent response rate). Here’s an overview of what they said: Respondents identified the top five trends they’re paying the most attention to: Integration with other service providers Analytics/reporting Remote and branch office management Tape replacement Data center consolidation The top three respondents were: Administrators (Backup, Storage, Infrastructure, System Engineers) Professional Services (Support, Consultants) Architects (Solution, Software) Respondent GEOs: 50 percent AMS 36 percent EMEA 14 percent APJ The top three industries of most importance included: Financial services Healthcare Public sector What does this mean for you? Do these trends align with the direction of your business? Veritas focuses on addressing them with a powerful and continually evolving suite. Start a conversation with our product teams. Hyper-converged solutions such as the Veritas Access Appliance fit perfectly in the healthcare and public sector space, and new solutions such as CloudPoint take the company’s 30+ years of experience in data protection and puts it into a brand new playing field. Check out the complete results of the survey for additional insight and feel free to visit cpep.veritas.comif you would like to participate in similar studies in the future.
Email Isn't eDiscovery Top Dog Any Longer, Recent Survey Finds
Symantec today issued the findings of its second annual Information Retention and eDiscovery Survey, which examined how enterprises are coping with the tsunami of electronically stored information (ESI) that we see expanding by the minute. Perhaps counter intuitively, the survey of legal and IT personnel at 2,000 enterprises found that email is no longer the primary source of ESI companies produced in response to eDiscovery requests. In fact, email came in third place (58%) to files/documents (67%) and database/application data (61%). Marking a departure from the landscape as recently as a few years ago, the survey reveals that email does not axiomatically equal eDiscovery any longer. Some may react incredulously to these results. For instance, noted eDiscovery expert Ralph Losey continues to stress the paramount importance of email: “In the world of employment litigation it is all about email and attachments and other informal communications. That is not to say databases aren't also sometimes important. They can be, especially in class actions. But, the focus of eDiscovery remains squarely on email.” While it’s hard to argue with Ralph, the real takeaway should be less about the relative descent of email’s importance, and more about the ascendency of other data types (including social media), which now have an unquestioned seat at the table. The primary ramification is that organizations need to prepare for eDiscovery and governmental inquires by casting a wider ESI net, including social media, cloud data, instant messaging and structured data systems. Forward-thinking companies should map out where all ESI resides company-wide so that these important sources do not go unrecognized. Once these sources of potentially responsive ESI are accounted for, the right eDiscovery tools need to be deployed so that these disparate types of ESI can be defensibly collected and processed for review in a singular, efficient and auditable environment. The survey also found that companies which employ best practices such as implementing information retention plans, automating the enforcement of legal holds and leveraging archiving tools instead of relying on backups, fare dramatically better when it comes to responding to eDiscovery requests. Companies in the survey with good information governance hygiene were: 81% more likely to have a formal retention plan in place 63% more likely to automate legal holds 50% more likely to use a formal archiving tool These top-tier companies in the survey were able to respond much faster and more successfully to an eDiscovery request, often suffering fewer negative consequences: 78% less likely to be sanctioned 47% less likely to lead to a compromised legal position 45% less likely to disclose too much information This last bullet (disclosing too much information) has a number of negative ramifications beyond just giving the opposition more ammo than is strictly necessary. Since much of the eDiscovery process is volume-based, particularly the eyes-on review component, every extra gigabyte of produced information costs the organization in both seen and unseen ways. Some have estimated that it costs between $3-5 a document for manual attorney review - and at 50,000 pages to a gigabyte, these data-related expenses can really add up quickly. On the other side of the coin, there were those companies with bad information governance hygiene. While this isn’t terribly surprising, it is shocking to see how many entities fail to connect the dots between information governance and risk reduction. Despite the numerous risks, the survey found nearly half of the respondents did not have an information retention plan in place, and of this group, only 30% were discussing how to do so. Most shockingly, 14% appear to be ostriches with their heads in the sand and have no plans to implement any retention plan whatsoever. When asked why folks weren’t taking action, respondents indicated lack of need (41%), too costly (38%), nobody has been chartered with that responsibility (27%), don’t have time (26%) and lack of expertise (21%) as top reasons. While I get the cost issue, particularly in these tough economic times, it’s bewildering to think that so many companies feel immune from the requirements of having even a basic retention plan. As the saying goes, “You don’t need to be a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.” And, the winds of change are upon us. Treating eDiscovery as a repeatable business process isn’t a Herculean task, but it is one that cannot be accomplished without good information governance hygiene and the profound recognition that email isn’t the only game in town. For more information regarding good records management hygiene, check out this informative video blog and Contoural article.Storage Trends from the Execs
On May 27, 2010 at the financial analyst day, the Symantec Storage and Availability Group Senior Vice President, Anil Chakravarthy and the Information Management Group Senior Vice President Deepak Mohan, teamed up to discuss the trends in storage. Slides of the Storage Trends Panel are available
