Presentation attended – Symantec with Dennis Prendergast and Ferdie Gomez

With email becoming more and more of a transactional tool between businesses both internal and external there is a real need to secure, archive and add intelligence to our email stores.

An interesting statistic delivered by Symantec is that 75% of Business IP is held in email.

1 in 400 emails is confidential.

So, in your business, what happens when your employee deletes an email from their PST file that is legally meant to be archived for 7-10 years?

Or, what happens when your employee leaves and your IT admin deletes the PST file while cleaning the PC for the next employee?

Lets say that employee forwards confidential information to their own personal mail account, leaves the company and then sues you and you no longer have access to their email store. Legally you could be screwed.

If 75% of your IP is in email then how do you go about adding intelligence to that information and sqeezing value out of that information? Most mail servers in their own right are not that smart when it comes to search, or say gathering information to make strategic decisions. Mail archiving solutions, like Symantec Enterprise Vault, can make a difference here and should also ensure that you never loose an email again. Policies probably need to be in place to ensure that work related emails are never deleted – perhaps move them into another folder.

But then you get the issue with the size of PST files being restricted by IT staff, so as an employee your are actually forced to delete emails and large attachments otherwise you get a message advising you are reaching your mailbox limit.

Presentation attended with Datastor – Jeff Raffills and Gary Cullen.

First topic discussed was the concept of data deduplication. The technology has been around for a while but only now is it becoming more of a commercial application. Check out the recent article on the activity of big companies snapping up the IP of those who have been in the game for some time. One company, Data Domain is still standing on it’s own two feet and has recently been granted a US patent for an “Efficient Data Storage System.”

The way I see this technology heading is that tape will be a thing of the past and this was certainly highlighted with some of the other technologies that were presented today. Currently though I doubt there are a large number of companies willing to remove themselves from the tape arena completely. And because this technology is similar to compression, voice and image files won’t compress so well. I do see an opportunity to introduce this technology into companies as an efficient way to storing older, non-critical data and at least get IT managers into the mindset that tape could be removed for 90% of it’s data.

I’m waiting on a presentation file from the suppliers. They had a good visual way of explaining the technology which I will attempt to post up here. The product Datastor talked about specifically was the Data Domain Applicance Series.

Presentation attended with Datastor – Jeff Raffills and Gary Cullen.

The second topic covered another bleeding edge technology in the storage space. Compellent Storage Center. The box consists of a controller, intel processors on a Linux kernel, and multiple storage tiers – 15k, 7.2k and SATA disk. Rather than managing data sets yourself the box can self manage and move data, at the block level, between the tiered storage in an optimized way. Setting up storage for Exchange for example is as simple as allocating storage space for Exchange and pointing exchange to that set. From that point on the Compellent box allocated blocks of sectors to Exchange as required. In a normal environment emails, calendars, attachments etc start filling up Tier1 storage. It’s a fact that most email is never reviewed again after about 7 days – but this data is still being stored on primary storage – not a very efficient use of expensive disk. Compellent will move this unaccessed data onto 2nd and 3rd tier storage, block by block, opening up space on the primary storage.

I don’t know if this is making sense or not. I have been told this company has a great live demo if you contact them. I’ll wait for the presentation files to come through and see if there is anything else I can add here.

Presentation attended with Datastor – Jeff Raffills and Gary Cullen.

The third topic discussed was regarding WAN acceleration for Mobile Clients. Gary mentioned that if a client is having a conversation about WAN Acceleration and is considering Riverbed as the product of choice, the client needs to be asked if they would consider WAN Acceleration for their mobile workforce, in which case a slightly different and new model needs to be introduced.

I had a look around Google for any announcements on this and couldn’t find anything regarding Riverbed but found lots of news about other Vendors already having this technology in place. Waiting for the presentation file to come through.

Traditional Tape really is getting a bashing. When you send your archived data off site, how long would you expect it to last? Well not long if you don’t maintain the tape. Because the data is sitting on strips of plastic the tape needs to be inserted into a loader and fed from start to finish and back again every 6 months to stop the tape from sticking completely and loosing the data. Stink buzz!

Now a new standard has come through – Ultra Density Optical – or UDO for short. The cartridges are currently 120gb and 240gb and are read by laser. They are certified to last for 50+ years and there’s no need to maintain the cartridge like tape and it’s also not sensitive to hot/cold/dust etc. The policy buffs have decided that 50+ years is a standard time for storing data nowadays, so this is a good option for those who are looking to review and renew their archiving processes.

Check out the range by Plasmon.

Siebel Wireless Integration with BlackBerry
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.   12-APR-2007 05:00 AM    Oracle today announced Oracle Siebel Wireless support for Blackberry(r) smartphones from Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM), bringing Oracle’s market-leading CRM applications and capabilities to BlackBerry users. With Siebel Wireless on the BlackBerry platform, enterprises can now provide their mobile workforce with access to important, real-time CRM data while on the go.

“CRM is becoming a primary use of mobile and wireless technology among enterprises,” said Mary Wardley, research vice president, CRM Applications, at IDC. “By utilizing mobile CRM, users have access to real-time customer data, enabling them to increase sales efficiencies and be productive when they are in the field.”

Oracle’s Siebel Wireless for BlackBerry enables enterprises to easily extend valuable CRM data to executives, sales teams and field services engineers who rely on their BlackBerry smartphones to conduct real-time communications and transactions. Providing wireless access to the latest CRM data available will allow stakeholders to provide more effective customer service and more efficient customer prospecting when in the field.

http://www.mobility4sap.com/docs/VTI.pdf

www.Mobility4SAP.com
Phil Ball, President of Diagonal Consulting US Operations (www.diagonal-consulting.com/americas) comments, “We are excited to be a participant in such a valuable community. This will enable us to learn more about the needs, trends and issues in the SAP community from a Mobility perspective, empowering us to provide better support services to our customers.”