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Using data protection to enrich SaaS strategies

Kirsten Doyle
By Kirsten Doyle, ITWeb contributor.
Johannesburg, 20 Jan 2020
Danie Marais, director of product management at Redstor.
Danie Marais, director of product management at Redstor.

With the increased sharing and storing of files in the cloud, potentially sensitive data is being exposed. But this data sprawl is beyond IT’s control due to the rapid and seamless adoption of new features and functionalities that employees are only too eager to try out. 

This leads to complications around compliance and a growing threat landscape, according to Danie Marais, director of software development at Redstor.

Marais will be presenting on ‘How data protection can enrich your SaaS strategies’, at ITWeb Cloud, Data Centre & DevOps Summit 2020, to be held at The Forum in Bryanston on 11 February.

“Unifying data protection in the cloud can provide the foundation to accelerate your SaaS journey," says Malan. "It will also help you to derive insights by laying the groundwork to see, classify and identify the full spectrum of the appropriate data.”

Having a centralised and unified backup strategy that covers data on-prem and in the cloud, allows organisations to simplify and rationalise data according to importance. IT departments can then tier it to save on storage and data management costs, while ensuring critical business data is secure and protected across an entire estate, he adds.

“By bringing all data together to apply analytics and intelligence at scale, organisations can become data driven,” he says.

Building a united architecture

Speaking of how companies should go about building a united data management architecture, Marais says an end-to-end data management strategy is key if a company is to fulfil its digital aspirations, comply with regulations and attain future IT transformation. 

ITWeb Cloud, Data Centre & DevOps 2020

Register for free for this one-day event, to be held on 11 February at The Forum in Bryanston. Themed ‘Setting future innovation in motion,’ the event will give you the opportunity to listen to industry experts and learn how to gain maximum benefit from your cloud, data centre and DevOps investments.

“It also gives the business freedom, flexibility and opportunity to avoid data stickiness to a single platform.”

He says a single, centralised view of all data across its network, will allow a company to boost IT’s visibility and enable classification of what is important for business and what is redundant, obsolete or trivial.

“The aim should be to improve data visualisation, management and capitalisation; eliminate the complexities of complying with data regulations; and restore data quickly and granularly to ensure business continuity.”

Shifting cloud gears

He issues a caveat:  that life on the cloud will be a dynamic rather than a static experience and enterprises must have the technology architecture to move and even shift cloud gears.

Vendor lock-in is one of the most challenging aspects of utilising cloud, warns Marais.

 “Third-party backup can help exit the cloud without losing business data, thereby providing data independence. If data is being moved out to another third-party cloud, it is important to establish the vendor can guarantee its availability.”

He also advises to avoid the temptation to make a decision based purely on a price point. 

“Think about the decision from a business outcome and continuity perspective. Above all,  be confident that data is secure, quickly accessible for regulatory compliance and easily recoverable to the level of granularity and in the time that you require.”

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