Takeaways of Commvault GO 17: The Future of Backup is Cloud and Analytics

The data management has become the focal point for IT majors globally, given the exponential rise in unstructured data that is disrupting businesses and organizations like never before. Commvault has tried to don a new image and position itself as an organization that can help its customers manage any amount of data in a way that it can be intelligently stored and used for true business insights. At its annual customer conference Commvault GO that took place in Maryland, US, the company explained the need to smartly store and manage data so that it can be used as a currency and become business-enabler.

During the conference, Commvault released the results of a global survey in which 1200  IT executives and IT professionals across six markets participated. The survey, ‘Measuring IT’s Readiness for Digital Business’, conducted in collaboration with Quadrant Strategies, identified the gaps between the expectations of management and the readiness of their organizations.

The report reveals that IT professionals are not unprepared in terms of their skillsets, technology and bandwidth to create a data-centric foundation, thereby to meet the requirements of future innovation and digital change.

Bob Hammer, CEO, Commvault, also pointed out at the importance of data in the cloud-driven world. Hammer said in his opening keynote address, “We have always been guided by our belief that it’s about the data, the whole data, and nothing but the data - and that idea has never been more relevant than it is today. Traditional approaches are just not working. The cloud has changed our thinking.”

Addressing Market-specific problems

During the conference, the focus was on how the present challenges can be turned into opportunities. Hammer in conversation with journalists revealed that Commvault is taking note of the key events in the global markets and building solutions that help customers deal with local and global factors. “GDPR is a big challenge for customers in the European market that needs to be handled before it is operational in the coming months. Commvault is all set to roll out the GDPR solution for the EU market in gap of few months. In my opinion, GDPR is a bigger problem than Y2K,” shared Hammer.

Through Dataquest’s interactions with a number of Commvault executives, it was learnt that the company is working actively in India to help customers with new tax regime with its GST-ready solutions.

Partnership with Google Cloud

In order to put its point across, the conference witnessed a bevy of notable speakers from across the spectrum. While the company has enhanced its partner-base, the biggest takeaway of the conference was Commvault partnership with Google Cloud. The company said that this partnership will help customers leverage cloud and help them reap new opportunities to scale faster, innovate easier and more securely protect, store and use data in the cloud.

“Our enterprise customers are looking for support for their migration strategies to Google Cloud Platform,” said Adam Massey, Director of Strategic Technology Partnerships, Google Cloud. “And with that comes a requirement for comprehensive data protection. Commvault will help our customers accelerate their migration by making it easier and faster to move data to Google Cloud Platform.”

Endpoint Data Protection as a Service

At Commvault GO 2017, the company also rolled out Commvault Endpoint Data Protection as a Service to simplify and streamline the backup and recovery of corporate data stored on laptops, desktops and other devices in one flexible, easy-to-use software as a service (SaaS) offering. The company claimed that it is fully managed by Commvault in the cloud with 24/7 customer support. In addition, the company said that Commvault Endpoint Data Protection as a Service eliminates the need for in-house infrastructure installation and reduces application management resources.

Exposition: AI ruled the show

This year also witnessed a host of breakout sessions and exhibition where Commvault partners had put on display a number of innovative solutions. However, the best attraction was Dubai Polie Robot. The robot was built using AI and other latest technologies. While the robot was not straight out from the Hollywood movies, it was an indication how some of the tasks could be handled by machines in the future.

In essence, the conference was able to draw a lot of interest from Commvault partners and customers. The company was successful in communicating that it is much more than backup and believes in solving the problems and not just offering products.