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16 October 2020

How Compliant is your backup?

Over the last decade, organisations have really struggled to deal with the multitude of contradictory requirements for data compliance. How do you ensure that data is retained long enough but not too long when dealing with sector, geographic and internal requirements?

Deciding which regulation trumps another is a complex process. In fact, it’s best left to compliance and risk officers.

There are 2 key factors in compliance:

  1. The IT department should be the facilitator for compliance not the decision maker
    • Let Risk/Compliance decide what needs to be kept, in what condition and for how long
    • IT provision a solution to meet the requirements
  2. ALL compliance policies should be audited
    • Retention Policy should be documented
    • Changes to Policy should be reviewed and approved
    • Audit trail of changes should be taken as evidence of compliance

Backup is not Archive

When you’re dealing with long term retention, many organisations choose backup rather than content archival because of its lower cost. But, too often, we forget about the auditing of changes within the backup solution that could impact compliance.

Typically, backup administrators have the power to make changes to data retention and even delete existing backups. However, this process isn’t as smooth sailing as we’d like to think. A simple typo could delete the wrong data accidently.

Users of IBM Storage Protect have the ability to place a “legal hold” on retention sets so that data doesn’t suddenly expire when it may be needed for subpoena.

IBM Storage Protect not only has an audit trail of changes, it also has the concept of authorisation. When this is configured effectively, it requires any disruptive change to be authorised by a second admin.

Although this is a great place to start towards ensuring compliance, if 2 admins are in cahoots, it could still be difficult to prevent malicious intent.

So, what can you do about it?

Predatar’s platform gathers meta data from Storage Protect and stores it offsite for analysis. It can be configured to not only audit the activities, but also raise alerts based on customised thresholds.

The Predatar platform can be made visible to key stakeholders and risk officers. This means that alerts relating to data destruction can be reviewed by non-IT personnel and appropriate action taken in light of a breach of compliance. Predatar’s audit trail helps compliance and risk officers demonstrate sustained control over data. It shows effectiveness and efficiency.

3 Quick Steps to Success

We recommend that Storage Protect users with compliance requirements take the following steps:

  1. Upgrade to version 8.1.9 or higher
  2. Create at least 2 admins with “cmdapprover=yes” set
  3. Set commandapproval to on

Predatar gives you the tools and control you need to keep your backup compliant.

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Predatar recovery assurance

16 October 2020

Podcast: The Canary in the Coal Mine

In this podcast, we speak to our new customer success officer, Andy Brown. We talk about why customer success for SaaS entities is so important and how it impacts their day-to-day deliverables.

We discuss the rapidly flowing river of data that is the IT industry and how IT customer service needs to be swiftly adaptable. Having the tools and skills to leap into action when things go wrong or change direction is crucial for Predatar as a SaaS platform.

We learn about how at Predatar, we take control of customer’s needs so that they can take control of their data.

 

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Predatar recovery assurance

03 October 2020

What is an Agile Customer Experience?

Welcome to the second instalment of our customer service spotlight feature!

If you’re reading this article, it’s probable that you’re no stranger to the likes of Agile business and Agile methodology. If by chance you are an alien to software agility, you might want to take a look at the official Agile Manifesto.

In simple terms, Agile is an umbrella word for an array of methods that companies – namely software development, IT, project management and delivery focussed – can implement to adapt to changing conditions in any of the following areas:

  • Market change
  • Customer demands
  • Stakeholder requests
  • Its own accelerated timelines

Whilst customer demand is a fundamental aspect of development, customer experience can often fly under the radar as a result. At Predatar, we’re all about making the customer’s experience as smooth and supported as possible, this means that we need to be agile in our customer interactions and processes.

What does this mean?

In the same way that agile methodologies make way for controlled change in business processes, creating an agile customer experience means adapting to customer needs and support requirements. It holds us accountable to our customers and enhances responsive change.

Why does it matter?

Currently, many organisations approach customer experience in a similar fashion. That is, customers are unpredictable. Because of this, making the customer journey as regimented as possible is often a key focus. Typically, a single agent will take a single customer call, or will respond to a single email. If the agent can’t resolve the issue, the query is fed through the organisation until it hits someone that can solve it. When we look at this from an outsider’s perspective, we can see how this might benefit the organisation in terms of time-saving but it’s certainly not as easy to see how it might benefit the customer and passing something through so many hands can cause its own issues.

Think about how many times you’ve been in this position. You’re on the phone to a service provider only to be passed from team to team, supervisor to supervisor. Banging your head against a brick wall comes to mind, right? You’re bound to come off the phone and complain to someone. You might even complain directly to the company, and with today’s digital accessibility to organisations, you can do it publicly over social media. So, with that in mind, an agile customer experience is a remarkable thing that can prevent customer frustration and enhance a company’s reputation ten-fold.

How does it happen?

Simply put, it’s about having the right specialists in all the right areas. Rather than focusing on a regimented and controlled customer experience, organisations should look ahead to future problem-solving with a zoomed in focus on mapping out and categorising customer journeys. No one customer is the same, and so there is no benefit in allocating them all to the same process.

Onwards… Agile steed!

For more about customer service, check out our interview with Predatar’s customer success officer, Andy! (he’s a real superhero!). You can read the interview here.

 

 

 

 

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Predatar recovery assurance