Our digital world is growing at an astounding pace. While society’s collective knowledge and understanding depends on the ongoing aggregation, analysis, and distribution of vast amounts of data, the preservation of these digital assets is at constant risk from cyber-attacks that evolve and threaten it. Recent reports total the number of new malware in 2016 alone at 127 million specimen, with other sources currently registering over 250,000 new malicious programs every day for 2018. While the growth in new types of the vast majority of malware is no longer expected to significantly increase year-over-year, most predict a sharp rise in ransomware. Read More

What is GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a newly implemented regulation concerned with the collection, handling, storage, protection and deletion of personal information of individuals within the European Union (EU). While reforms were agreed upon in December 2015, organizations were not expected to be compliant until May 25, 2018. The main points of the ruling are:

• Organizations must protect data assets containing the personal information of EU residents.
• Organizations must maintain the ability to delete such data and are required to do so upon the request of the individual

Organizations that do not manage and protect personal data appropriately face serious fines under the new regulation. This considerable penalty is why this regulation is getting so much attention, not only in Europe, but across the world. Read More

Tape Technology Remains a Viable Veeam Backup Target

I had the pleasure of attending my first VeeamOn event this week. Veeam’s annual conference provides both end users and partners with insightful information on new initiatives. Set in Chicago, this year’s event facilitates conversation on a broader level by bringing these audiences together in one location. From the moment I landed, I had a feeling that the event was going to blow me away. With 2,200 in attendance, it didn’t fail to impress. Read More

Last week, Spectra Logic brought together close to 20 users from the large tape community for hands-on product demonstrations, in-depth technology discussions and classic mile-high networking. Many of these users have historically gathered for the annual Large Tape User’s Group Conference in Colorado.

The event enabled the attendees to hear how others are solving data storage challenges and obtain a first-hand look at the future of storage. This year’s topic, “Scaling the Performance Wall,” focused on the need for overall performance when implementing storage solutions for massive data environments. Read More

Breakthrough. This was the theme of the 2018 Women in Leadership Development (WILD) Summit that took place on Thursday, April 26, at the Colorado Westin Westminster. The event was designed to inspire through stories of real women, accomplishing real things, in our world. The conference was attended by over 900 mostly women business owners, professionals, entrepreneurs, and students.

Break through what, you might ask? Norms, ceilings, molds – anything and everything getting in the way of women moving ahead and into leadership positions in their life and work. Speakers and panelists opened up about their own personal and professional breakthroughs. The morning panel with Katica Roy, CEO and co-founder of Denver-based Pipeline Equity, was a highlight for Jenny Mahoney, business intelligence developer at Spectra Logic. “I was very happy to hear Katica comment on what I consider the ‘missing link’ in most efforts around gender equity: support of men in traditionally female roles,” says Mahoney. Pipeline leverages artificial intelligence to help businesses operationalize gender equity and drive economic gains. Katica shared data points and insights validating the positive correlation between gender equity and revenue performance and dispelling the myth that women leave work because of motherhood. Read More

Is the data or digital content you’re writing, creating, or capturing going to last longer than the media it’s written on? The majority of every organization that works with such information or content will answer, “Yes.”

That means the information will have to be moved from the original technology it’s stored on to a newer technology – welcome to ‘data migration’. The life of disk drives in production is roughly three to four years. LTO tape cartridges have a shelf life of 30 years, but requires a tape drive capable of reading the tape media 30 years later. As data and digital content become ever more important in our modern society, so does the need for a modernized approach to data and content migration. Read More

Marketing Program Manager, Spectra Logic

Our society is currently undergoing an explosion in digital data that shows no sign of slowing down. The volume of data created each day has increased immensely and will continue to grow exponentially over time, especially in high performance computing research environments. Where should organizations store their data and what is the best way to manage it? Sure, short-term fixes are appealing due to their easy implementation, but often worsen long-term storage challenges associated with performance, scalability and cost. It is essential to consider future needs when examining storage options. Read More