Author: Alistair Mackenzie

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.

This spotlight feature will delve into the ins and outs of what customer service means to us and why it’s so important to have it at the core of our platform. So, who better to start with than our shiny, brand-new customer success officer, Andy!

We interviewed Andy to get some top insights on customer service excellence, and you guessed it, to be a little bit nosy.

How long have you worked in customer service, Andy?
Oh… good question! *Long Pause* About 25 years… *Hearty chuckle*.

Wow. What made you choose Predatar this time round, with all of that experience behind you?
I thought it was a really exciting opportunity. The role is not only brand new to the company, but they have this real desire to grow and to add value to what they’re doing. Especially in terms of remaining customer-focused – I wanted to help them accelerate that plan.

It sounds like it’s a role that holds a lot of opportunity. What do you enjoy about being in a customer focused role?
I’ve always had a passion for helping people out, from early on in my career. Whatever role I’ve worked in, I’ve always been focused on supporting other people, be that customers or my colleagues. I’m able to build relationships really effectively and engage with the right people to deliver to expectations. That’s what it’s all about really, building relationships and not only reaching those expectations but exceeding them. Of course, it’s not just with customers. Building relationships internally really serves to indicate whether you’re the right fit for the companies’ culture. But then you need to understand the culture of the customer too, as much as you integrate yourself into the company culture. Like, what are their values? What are their behaviours?

Absolutely. I imagine that customer culture can vary quite a lot. In terms of the tech industry and data backup and recovery, what’s the difference there in the customer’s experience?
Well, it’s not like going into a supermarket! The experience isn’t over quickly, it covers an entire lifecycle. It’s ultimately building a relationship from scratch, building trust over an extended period and consistently, too! A customer should always feel the culture of the organisation from the first touch point. It’s important to be responsive and get those basics right, because those things can be so easily overlooked. It’s all about building partnerships and creating a space for trustworthy engagement.

Predatar is all about simplicity and control when it comes to the customer, how does your role fit into this?
Simplicity basically means that everything we do should be easy for customers to understand. A lot of what Predatar provides is a highly technical service, and although my role isn’t technical, the guys here are so good at simplifying things. As for control, it’s about creating that balance between giving the customer the control they need whilst ultimately being there to support and maintain that control.

Finally, Andy, what does being a data protection superhero mean to you?
Haha, well, the character I’ve been given is ‘Mr Fantastic’. I think this is such a clever approach in articulating how seriously we take what we do but in a really fun, streamlined way. It’s about giving the customer the absolute confidence to know that they’re in safe hands.

So, there we have it. An interview with Predatar’s very own Mr Fantastic, data protection superhero at your (customer) service!

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that protecting our data needs to be an adjustable process. Now, more than ever, data protection is under the gun. Businesses are concerned that their standard data protection practices will not hold firm due to lack of resources and the move to digital at-home practices.

We know that investing in good data protection technology offers long-term payoff, but are we making the most out of what we’re paying for?

It can be all too easy for businesses to slip into the habit of neglecting data backup and recovery practices. We pay for it, we get it, it does its thing, right? Wrong! Like everything else revolving around technology, data management tools are continuously advancing and improving over time.

Typical backup systems tend to start small with various building blocks consisting of applications, hardware, software and admin. Let’s liken it to growing a garden. You decide to plant some roses; you water them and fertilise them. Once they grow, you think they might look nice with some sunflowers, so you do the same. Before you know it, you’ve got a big beautiful garden but it’s overgrowing, and you don’t have all of the tools to maintain it. The same goes for backup systems.

Backup and recovery assets multiply over time and need constant monitoring via IT administration teams. The mistake that many businesses make is investing money into more of these assets in order to fill in any gaps, rather than investing in tool kits that aid IT professionals and exercising their right to upgrade.

For many companies, data is tied to large systems that have been in place for donkey’s years! Whilst these systems still function technically well and conform to GDPR regulations, they might not be working in tandem with newer applications – which will also eventually become outdated. This means that companies can end up in a tangled web of different backup and recovery technologies.

As a result, companies spend millions on data backup and recovery assets. But, the cost pales in comparison to the value of the data that needs protecting. If something were to go wrong, and an outdated backup and recovery method failed to protect the company’s data, the company could be fined hundreds of millions. In 2019, British Airways was fined $230 million for a data breach!

Ultimately, companies are missing out on opportunities to reduce the amount of admin and to modernise their systems that protect this data. Continuously adding new assets rather than upgrading:

1. Creates vulnerable points in your data protection defences (more products, more ways for data to be compromised and more ways for recovery to go wrong!)
2. Is uneconomical for businesses to pay for several data and backup recovery products
3. Doesn’t consider modern models of data storage, like the cloud

Simply upgrading your current backup systems to modernise the process can greatly reduce the likelihood of things going wrong, whilst remaining cost-effective. It can:

• Improve security, protecting you from threats (think about adding encryption!)
• Foster efficiency. Newer versions of software can reduce infrastructure costs
• Need more space? An upgrade can bring into play cloud storage as an alternative to tape, which though inexpensive, can be cumbersome to manage

Many Predatar customers own IBM Spectrum software, paying an annual maintenance fee which includes the right to upgrade their software. It’s time to think about exercising that right.

The latest release of Storage Protect supports everything from Unix machines to virtual workloads and now container-based clusters. A single, secure home for all your data needs. It’s efficient, powerful and easily controlled.

And remember, if you don’t have time to modernise your Storage Protect system, our global network of Apex Partners can help, providing you with local expertise!

The outsourcing of back office processes has come in and out of fashion over the years. But just like your favourite pair of jeans it has never completely fallen out of favour. Like your trusty denim its popularity has sometimes been threatened, with the most recent threat being from Software as a Service (SaaS). With the SaaS promise of simplicity, scalability and automation why consider outsourcing if a modern software platform can do it all for you? There is a very simple answer. Outsourcing remains popular today because it has evolved. In fact, it has evolved so far beyond the scope of ‘traditional’ outsourcing that it has become disruptive!

Old versus new.

Traditional outsourcing has always had its feet planted in the cost reduction & improved efficiency camp. It has never really ventured too far outside these boundaries. It is because of this lack of movement that we are seeing traditional outsourcing models under threat and in serious decline. On the flip side those providers that are taking advantage of cloud scalability, automation and analytics (just like the SaaS providers) are quickly gaining market share and seeing massive growth.

By harnessing this modern technology, providers are delivering enhanced customer value that efficient outsourced processes and cost reduction alone could never achieve. The focus of these providers has moved from a simple lift and shift of traditional processes, to delivering upfront transformation of business processes through automation. Automation frees up the outsourcers to add additional value to customers and tackle the hard to fix issues that businesses never get time to fix alone. Businesses looking to outsource are starting to recognise that modern technology solutions can revolutionise the way they receive their outsourced service. No longer is outsourcing just about getting rid of a problem while saving some cash. Customers still expect this but they now expect a whole lot more.

Is cost saving enough?

Take the area of backup and recovery. Many businesses will outsource this as it is often the most cost-effective way for them to protect their data. Why go through the hassle and expense of hiring and training people up in complex tools and processes when businesses can simply chuck this over the fence to people who do this day in and day out?

Sure, they will save on money, stress and some of the responsibility but is that enough? If the outsourcer simply picks up where their teams left off, how do they know their backup success rates are as good as they can possibly be?

How do they know if they are making best use of their infrastructure and costly storage pools? How do they ensure their data protection spend and effort is apportioned correctly between their most and least valuable data sets?

How do they ensure that if they have a disaster they are 100% guaranteed to get their data back?

It is these sorts of challenges that a disruptive outsourcer will solve. In fact a good disruptive outsourcer will thrive on doing this and not see it as a hardship. This is that extra value that business will struggle to get from traditional outsourcing. It is possible because disruptive outsourcers know how to blend great SaaS-style technology with great people for maximum impact at a competitive price point.

Don’t be threatened. Innovate.

This is happening everywhere. In the Accounting, Payroll and Recruitment industries, it’s clear disruptive outsourcing is driving extraordinary change.. Businesses expect more than cost reduction from from outsourcing. They will turn to service providers who can help them innovate.

You could argue that SaaS has threatened Outsourcing. Or  like your best pair of jeans you could argue that the latest fashion trends drive the denim industry to continually innovate.

Everyone wants to be Lionel Messi

Michael Jordan, Pelé and Mia Hamm. History has shown us that we remember and talk about these types of players more often than those in defensive roles (putting athletes like Dennis Rodman or Cafu aside of course!). It is the same with data.

Just like most sports there are two sides to data; defence & offence (or Defense and Offense for our American readers). When data defence and data offence are discussed in business it is highly likely that the chat will quickly turn towards offence. This often happens because a strong data offence strategy gives a business an exciting platform for growth. And this is what drives most business leaders.

Either side could win it, or it could be a draw!

But if the focus of business investment is offence, spending less on governance and security increases risk. This means that a business could start to lose just as quickly as the offensive strategy sets it up to win. As Sir Alex Ferguson once said ‘Attacking wins games, but defending wins championships’. What Sir Alex means is that good defence ensures that you’re not losing ground and this in turn allows your offensive strategy to be much more effective.

Its squeaky-bum time.

The words from Sir Alex are probably more relevant today then they have ever been. The current crisis has seen much of the economy go into a deep freeze as businesses try and figure out their next move, while simultaneously looking at ways to preserve cash. As governments around the world look to kick start their economies back to life it will be interesting to see which strategy businesses will take.

Will we see them setting themselves up like a Jose Mourinho Spurs side? Will they go into a 99% defensive, hunker-down mode and then with the remaining 1% try and pick off any chances that come their way? Or will they setup themselves up like Thomas Tuchel’s Paris Saint-Germain to attack and drive new ways of operating, so they don’t just survive the pandemic but accelerate out of it?

Sometimes in football you have to score goals.

So how does this relate to data? Well a strong data defence strategy will ease the effort needed to deliver your data offence strategy. If data is well controlled, defined & protected then it becomes much easier to reuse this critical resource for offence. So, while data defence may not be as exciting as offence, it is just as important.

The question then is a simple one. Do you setup yourselves up with a play not to lose strategy? Or do you play to win? Just like with football teams the answer will be different for every business. Whatever you decide, ensure your defence is watertight because without this your growth will always be fragile.

If you want help ensuring your data defence is watertight why not check out Predatar Insights and get the inside track on your data performance here.

Backup was in the spotlight again last week with news from IBM, Veeam and Kasten. The latter two companies teaming up to solve the complexity of data protection for hybrid clouds. Veeam established in virtual machine protection, Kasten focused on Kubernetes workloads.

Not to be outdone, IBM announced enhancements to Storage Protect to support its corporate strategy of helping enterprise customers transition workloads to cloud. Notable announcements included backup for AWS EC2 instances and extended use of Object storage and tape, burnishing its security credentials. Improved integration with Kubernetes Labels will make it easier for developers to protect application data and systems, in groups.

Anonymous Spin

Unfortunately, both announcements were filled with references to malware and cyber crime in general. This, rather than the new features, is the focus of the blog. It got us wondering what triggers backup, or more accurately, recovery incidents? We looked at data in Predatar over a five-year period from 2014 (roughly the period when ransomware became part of the general IT psyche), to 2019.

Some observations.

Firstly, every organisation did at least one restore in any calendar year, ranging from dozens to thousands of restores. As a percentage, average recovery ranged from 2.5% to 4% of total data backed up. If a company backed up 100TB of data, in any calendar year it would recover between 2.5TB and 4TB. It has a 1 in 25 chance of needing to recover a known data set, regardless of whether it is the victim of a ransomware attack.

It’s not the extreme tail-risks that’ll get you (or your data at least), but boring, often routine, malfunctions and errors.

Media Spin

Newsrooms and media barons don’t attract audiences or sell newspapers with the mundane. For every news grabbing homicide in the USA, twenty-five people die quietly from heart problems. The data protection barons seem intent on copying this narrative by insisting every press release is laced with images of corporate calamity at the hands of cyber criminals.

Secondly, what’s important is not so much your ability to avoid all incidents but your ability to handle them well. There has been a tendency, as the technologists we are, to rely too much on automation and product features. We try to design and architect out of existence every conceivable failure. This is admirable but it’s impossible to avoid random but inevitable events. It’s more important to stay alert. Mortality figures again offer up an example…

Take it for a Spin

Did you know in some European countries, more pedestrian-crossing users (“zebra” for our American friends) die than jaywalkers? The health and safety interventions designed to protect us can have unintended consequences. Foot walkers switch off when using a zebra crossing; jaywalkers stay alert.

The secret to staying “backup alert” is to test and test regularly.

If there is a must-have feature on your data protection shopping list, it’s the ability to regularly and systematically perform recovery testing. This won’t make your data immune from threats or catastrophic events, but it will make your system more robust.

On February the 20th 2020, the price of crude oil was $60 a barrel while the Dow Jones Industrial Average went above 29,000. Nearly a month before these lofty valuations, the Chinese authorities had placed the City of Wuhan under strict lock down. A few weeks after the stock price highs, the Dow crashed 30% and oil was trading below $20 a barrel.

Despite an ocean of data, the world was still awash with oil and most asset classes were hammered.

How can it be, with the incredible progress of artificial intelligence and more data than we know what to do with, our prediction engines could be so faulty? What is going on here?

Data as the new oil is a terrible analogy. For sure, the world is drowning in oil and data both. They each bring riches to a select group of companies. But their similarities pale beside their differences.

There is a finite supply of oil unlike data, the creation of which is accelerating (estimated to be 2.5 quintillion bytes per day). Oil, whilst currently very cheap, has a measurable value and can be traded as a commodity. Oil can be stored and not lose value because of it. The US government stores 700m barrels of oil in 60 subterranean salt caverns, as part of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. At today’s prices, this oil store has a known value, roughly $14 billion.

How much are data worth?

The European Union in 2019 estimated the valuation of personal data at €1 trillion, approximately 8% of the EU’s GDP. I don’t understand the basis for this estimate and besides, it is entirely meaningless. There is no credible or trusted “Data Economy”. There is no market where data can be easily bought and sold. It does happen but with a high degree of risk to the buyer.

IBM learned that lesson. That great public relations event, the Jeopardy game show in 2011, emboldened the then CEO, Ginny Rometty, to invest nearly $15 billion in Watson, it’s artificial intelligence platform. This included $2 billion to acquire Truven Health and a further $2.6 billion for The Weather Company. IBM was acquiring data to help build commercial offerings.

How did IBM put a value on that data? Could IBM have foreseen a lawsuit in January 2019 by the City of Los Angeles against The Weather Company, on grounds of data privacy? On a return on investment basis, IBM likely paid far too much. Unlike the Oil Futures, there is no reliable Data Exchange.

One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.

Oil takes millennia to form and unless refined, does not change much. Data, by comparison, is easily created and is very fungible. We give most of our personal data away for free. Seemingly to us, it has no inherent value. For the FAANGs (Facebook, Alphabet etc), data are a force multiplier which is why we get free, or discounted services, in exchange.

Artificial Intelligence platforms were supposed to be the new oil refineries. Oil refineries turn crude oil into useful products we can all use, like detergents, shampoo and heart valves! What does Big Tech’s AI turn our data into? More profit for itself, through better advertising, personalisation and visual recognition.

One could argue then that the proceeds from oil are more widely dispersed than from data.  Whatever trickle-down economic benefit the general population receives from oil is unlikely to be repeated in the age of artificial intelligence. The data they have has little value to anyone but their immediate competitors. Unlike oil, data are not openly traded or exchanged. Big Tech’s monopolies will likely get even bigger and more powerful.

For most ordinary businesses, the utility value of every additional one Terabyte of data could be outweighed by the cost of managing that data. Government regulations such as the EU’s GDPR or California’s Consumer Privacy Act, are easily manageable taxes for companies like Amazon and Alphabet. For the rest of us, storing data is increasingly expensive, despite the fall in hardware prices.

A wicked problem

Being in possession of lots of data is no insurance policy against loss. As I said earlier, data do not prevent bad forecasts and unreliable probability calculations, especially when tail risks materialise, as with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Data are important to individuals and businesses, large and small. However, the value of data is highly user dependent. If business leaders are to maximise this store of wealth, first they must identify what data is most important, then assess what they want to do with it. Only then, can they quantify how much to invest in managing and protecting that data.

It is estimated there will be 180 zettabytes of data by 2025. That’s 180, followed by 21 zeros. Data on their own, do not eliminate risk or give us certainty in our decision making. If we are not to drown in data, we must first learn to ask the right questions.

How can we help IT infrastructure operators, better serve the developers building container-based applications?

In this podcast I’m joined by Predatar Managing Director, Rick Norgate.

We discuss the key features of the Predatar “Falcon” platform release (r11.3, March 26th), all designed to help you deliver dynamic, consumer-friendly, data protection services.

Rick also shares his passion for UX usability and good design. He gives a glimpse into the 2020 Predatar road map and how we are helping service providers, well…. better serve their customers remotely.

Cost cutting measures proposed by Finance Directors are being assessed by Chief Executives, eager not to cut the marrow out of their businesses. The trick is not to leave organisations permanently vulnerable.

Protecting data is a task which cannot be jettisoned but it can be made more efficient. Here’s how you can preserve cash immediately by making changes to your data protection platform:

Identify waste

With the necessary tools, quickly identify duplicate, and rogue, data retention policies across your backup infrastructure. In our experience, many companies lack discipline when it comes to setting tight rules around what data to keep, and for how long. Software and hardware vendors love your inefficiency.

Switch Licence Model

Few companies have the time right now for skunkworks, or any project with an elongated pay back. Many are switching to a subscription pay-as-you-use licence model. This is a simple paper exercise and can free up cash immediately, especially if you can negotiate monthly billing terms.

Consolidate Products

Large companies are plagued with managing three or more different backup software products. When cash is king, this is a luxury few can afford. What better time to consolidate backup across Unix, Windows, Virtual, Cloud and Container platforms while taking advantage of modernising features?

Go “On-Demand” for Disaster Recovery

Recovery orchestration technology makes cloud a more flexible alternative to syndicated disaster recovery. Fast server provisioning and automated recovery from backup, make owning a second datacentre obsolete.

These recommendations are common regardless of the data protection products in use. However, if you are an IBM Storage Protect (formerly TSM) user, we can help you realise cost savings immediately.

On March 26^th Predatar 11.3 will be released. Here are some of the highlights…

Self Service Registration

The team has been working on a common registration wizard for Storage Protect and Storage Protect Plus. Its never been more important to get quick insights into your entire backup environment, wherever it may be located and regardless of Storage Protect version.

A Bird’s Eye View

Talking of money saving. The new release features a new storage utilisation report, bringing together all Storage Protect and Protect Plus storage types. A consolidated report to identify and eliminate resource waste, for the following storage classes:

• Vsnap storage
• Disk Pools
• Storage Pools
• Container Pools
• Sequential Disk

Licence Modeller

Predatar partners can access the comprehensive Licence Snapshot tool to help them advise clients on the most suitable software licence model for them.

If you use IBM Storage Protect or Protect Plus and would like more information on how to save money immediately, do get in touch at info@predatar.com or visit www.predatar.com.

The new digital imperative

The urgency and importance given to digital transformation is natural. Faced with broken business models and digital disruption, companies have poured massive investment into agile software development. Whilst money has been no object for cloud-native projects, core IT assets have been left in maintenance mode.

Software developers are the new rock stars of IT, consuming infrastructure like the commodity it is. Spinning up whatever they need to increase the speed and agility of DevOps.

The Rise of the infrastructure developer

An eleven-year stock market bull run has ended. Corporate profitability is coming off its peak of 2019 and businesses have combined to build up over $74 trillion of debt, much of it in bonds. As share prices fall, bond prices go up and their principal payments will soon fall due. In 2020, cash is again king.

It’s imperative that digital transformation projects continue to receive investment. However, the cash saving skills of IT Operators are needed to check the profligacy, and prevent unnecessary infrastructure spend.

The Return of the SAN

Technology trends come and go, sometimes they loop back around. Twenty years ago, Storage Networks were all the rage when EMC Corporation’s share price peaked in April 2000. As storage prices came down, direct attached storage steadily killed off the Storage Area Network (SAN). Now when developers need compute, they simply order up the fastest block storage they need from their chosen cloud vendor. No wonder IaaS bills from the big vendors like AWS, Azure and Google have skyrocketed.

History tells us it can take a major change in circumstances for new technology to be adopted. We believe the current downturn will help to accelerate an exciting storage technology, which is on the verge of exploding. That technology is Non-Volatile Memory Express over Fabric (NVMe-oF, or simply NVMF).

Published in June 2016, version 1 of the protocol was designed to enable data transfers between a host computer and a target solid-state storage device or system. And be able to do this over a network. Transfer methods can be via Ethernet, Fibre Channel (FC) or InfiniBand. Put simply, the benefit of NVMe-oF is in providing the same speed and low-latency of direct attached storage, with the cost saving benefits of networked storage.

Enabling multi-cloud and cloud-to-edge. The container explosion

The need for speed in edge computing is obvious. The rise of container multi-clusters also demands fast, low latency storage solutions, wherever they reside. This new world of container workload migration will be enabled by the flexibility of networked storage. Better cost optimisation will come from the improved utilisation of shared pooling. This is what makes NVMe-oF such a compelling technology for multi-cloud and edge computing.

According to Gartner, more than 75 percent of global organisations will be running containerised applications in production in 2022, compared with under 30 percent today. With containers used in the cloud, the edge and the core, traditional IT operators with storage expertise should start to exert their influence in future data architectures.

Maybe its time for some of you storage SMEs to come in from the cold. You’re needed again, and you have some new toys to play with.

By Alistair Mackenzie, CEO
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