Storage applications

Today`s businesses want the most capacity for their money spent, obtaining that illusive return on investment, and on top of this, the continuous need for reliability and business uptime.

Key to remember is that companies now demand clear evidence of what business advantages come with storing information more swiftly and effectively. The bottom line is that enterprises are now storing data with a purpose and a reason - not just simply storing it for the sake of storage.

In the past, IT managers made the decisions when it came to storage capacity and the applications deployed, now managerial teams are making them- as they ultimately pay for it. Indeed, they`ve come to realise that storage can be a valuable asset, for example, the ability to mine data that stretches a decade and then using it to gain a competitive advantage.

Business is now measuring IT and its deliverables.

The Basel Accord, King II Report and the ECT Act all voice one very important issue, the ability to prove when, how and who receives and reads company correspondence. Coupled with this, companies must also be able prove that copy is secure and not tampered with before it is backed up.

For example, when buying shares you must be able to prove that you instructed a purchase on that specific day and be sure that it will be saved on tonight`s backup, not tomorrow`s.

Looking at the IT department`s responsibilities, long gone are the days when you can hand a user a disk and expect him or her to save data. Today we`re dealing with critical data for which the IT department should take responsibility, centralising it and ensuring that it is well protected and included in the backup procedure.

We predict that companies wanting to fulfil their corporate governance duties will be the biggest storage spenders.

We compete in all aspects with Veritas. This is why we`ve upped our game, launching new releases of our storage products (with new features) more often. One of our key strengths is that we listen to our customers when developing new storage products, or adding new features.

For example, our new BrightStor ARCserve r11 Backup for Windows now features enhanced Microsoft Exchange support - including document level backup and restore that enables companies to store or restore individual e-mails and attached documents.

All our storage products also integrate with each other as well as the rest of CA`s products. For example, ARCserve r11 integrates with BrightStor storage resource management (SRM) and server replication solutions and with CA`s eTrust security and Unicenter enterprise management solutions, enabling companies to streamline their IT administrative processes.