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Quantum Leads End-user Survey for Secondary Storage

ActiveScale

coldago logo

In the most recent end-user survey from Coldago Research , Quantum leads all vendors as the top brand for secondary storage.  Coldago’s April 2021 report surveyed over 2,000 end-users across SMB and enterprises about their brand preferences on a wide range of storage types and applications.  In secondary storage, Quantum is the leading brand. 

secondary storage

With the growth in secondary storage including object storage, Quantum offers a wide range of products to serve our customer’s needs.  These market segments are poised for growth.  According to IDC “Object storage accounts for the largest part of the public cloud storage market and continued to experience significant growth (31% in 2019)[1].  With that level of growth, customers need a wide portfolio of secondary storage products. 

End User Survey, Top US/EMEA brands for Secondary Storage

“Coldago Research unveils its end-users survey 2021 addressing perceptions, opinions, needs and priorities. We also asked users’ to rank vendors in various categories and for secondary storage, Quantum arrives 1st both in USA and Europe confirming the corporate and product strategy initiated a few years ago with new products, technology developments, acquisitions and talent recruitments that started to pay off”, said Philippe Nicolas, analyst at Coldago Research. “As a pioneer of secondary storage, Quantum continues to offer large, diverse and broad offerings targeting from small configurations to very large-scale environments, whatever is the technology, storage media, architecture and access methods making their solutions a real universal, unified and ubiquitous approach”, concludes Nicolas.

At Quantum, we’re pleased with the recognition that IT professionals have bestowed in this survey.  Over the last few years, we’ve made numerous improvements to our entire portfolio.  Here’s just a quick summary:

  • ActiveScale object storage – Multiple new releases that provide object locking, small object aggregation, and advanced troubleshooting.  New hardware included the P100E3 3-node platform for smaller customers and the new X200 platform for more performance and scale. 
  • Scalar tape – Introduction of multi-factor authentication builds upon the value of Active Vault, a feature available only in Quantum’s Scalar tape libraries to secure critical off-line data against ransomware attacks. The new feature makes unauthorized access extremely difficult, and underscores Quantum’s commitment to innovation for preserving and protecting valuable customer data.
  • DXi backup appliances – New features include Secure Snapshots and others in collaboration with Veeam, including multi-tiered backup and replication to Quantum DXi appliances, across sites, to the cloud and to Scalar tape libraries.

“The Coldago report demonstrates strong customer satisfaction across the full line of Quantum’s secondary storage products,” said Bruno Hald, Quantum’s GM for Secondary storage. “We are a customer-driven organization and have delivered a series of innovation for a full range of customers, from SMB, larger enterprises, and to our hyperscale customers.  We look forward to providing them with additional products and services to improve their bottom line”. 

[1] Source:  IDC report, Cold Storage Services in the Public Cloud IaaS Market, #WC2020087, Sept 1, 2020

Learn more at https://www.coldago.com/ and read the source report: https://www.coldago.net/eusurvey

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A Trifecta of Veeam-Ready Solutions

ActiveScale

They say the most interesting things in life come in sets of threes. Certainly, some sets are more interesting and simpler than others, such as live, love, laugh, or rock, paper, scissors, or my favorite, the good, the bad, and the ugly. While not super philosophical, they are easy concepts to remember and, in some cases, simplify our daily lives. When we think of things that we need to simplify in a data centric environment, we think of data management, data security, and data protection. Quantum has made a commitment to provide leading solutions that simplify; this is clearly apparent as we continue to work with Veeam offering solutions around data management, security, and protection. Quantum has been a long-standing partner of Veeam and has been certified as Veeam Ready, a program that ensures compliance with functionality and performance standards put forth by Veeam.

As the evolution of Big Data continues, the three core topics of concern to date are protect, secure, and manage data. The industry has done a decent job of providing data protection. Data Management is an emerging market segment focused on unstructured data. Recent hacking and ransomware attacks have brought concerns around data security to the forefront of people’s minds. Quantum has been a Veeam partner for a long time, since Veeam 9.5 Quantum DXi deduplication appliances and award-winning Scalar tape libraries have been certified with Veeam. Quantum’s most recent addition to the portfolio, Active Scale Object Storage , has also been Veeam Ready (v10) certified. Here is the full portfolio that is Veeam 10 Ready certified:

Veeam Integrated DXi Deduplication Appliance

DXi backup appliances offer cost-effective, fast backup and restores for mission-critical product data. Our customers love our DXi for many reasons, but feedback we often hear is that the DXi replication starts just after the first file is backed up without waiting for the end of the Veeam task, so the period of risk—the gap between when a backup is done and a copy is safely off site—is incredibly short, unlike some competitor’s solutions that start the replication only when the Veeam task is done. In v10, Fast Clone feature improves synthetic full performance by referencing existing data blocks on volumes instead of copying data blocks between files and copying those blocks only when files are modified. We have seen up to 15x improvement in our test labs and customer deployments in the speed and in some cases reduced the creation time from hours to minutes.

Veeam Ready Scalar Tape Library

Quantum Scalar tape solution for compliance, long-term retention requirement and ransomware protection. Quantum Scalar library is the only tape system in the market that uses Active Vault, a hands-off approach to managing media between an active and vaulted partition that is completely disconnected from the network. This enables our customers to fully airgap their data and thwart the effects of ransomware or other malware.

Veeam Ready Object Immutability – Active Scale Object Storage

ActiveScale is Quantum’s object storage system that provides a data-forever storage infrastructure. The ActiveScale system architecture accommodates storing primary copy of multi-petabyte-scale datasets that are highly durable and facilitates long-term data retention with minimal administrative overhead. With a Veeam Ready Object Immutability certification, Quantum solutions offer clients the ability to leverage our appliances efficiently through the Veeam GUI.

For more information on testing criteria or detailed information about how Quantum’s portfolio can help you achieve your data protection requirements, visit us our Quantum & Veeam web page or talk to one of our solution representatives.

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Cyber Insurance Market is Evolving Due to Ransomware Demands

CMMA Blog

The cyber security insurance market is evolving amidst an increase in ransomware demands and payments. Insurance companies have been taking on unmitigated risk, but as we begin to better understand the threats, insurers are moving the risk over to the subscribers, requiring stricter controls.  

Cyber Security Insurance Companies Requiring Stricter Controls

Cyber security insurance companies are changing their approach in dealing with ransomware. ZDNet claims that ransomware accounted for 41% of all cyber insurance claims in the first half of 2020 with claims ranging in size from $1,000 to over $2 million per ransomware incident. Out of all the cyberattacks in 2019, the attacks from the malicious malware known as ransomware have increased to 62% up from 56% the previous year. Latest studies indicate there is one attack every 39 seconds with demands for payments increasing year-over-year and at a high volume especially since RaaS (ransomware-as-a-service) adopted big-game hunting tactics (BGH = targeting enterprises). Whether a small business or a large enterprise, attackers have had an 80% rate of success. These statistics are alarming to the insurance industry and they should be.

Today, cyber insurers have not had strict requirements to underwrite a policy. This is very different from, let’s say, insuring an office building or your home from fire. It is best practice to have fire insurance, but to get coverage, the building owner/managers need to mitigate fire risk and install a sprinkler system. If they don’t, the insurer will demand the system be installed to accept the risk and provide the coverage needed. Similarly, cyber insurance brokers are further examining the risks they take and are beginning to push additional control measures to help mitigate ransomware risk. Underwriters are catching up with the myriad of changes happening in the data center and just like the security professional, they too are at a critical moment as this landscape evolves. “The cyber insurance market has rallied around the need for more sophisticated ways to mitigate ransomware,” said Mr. Maher, North America Cyber, AXIS Insurance (Insurancebusinessmag.com/us/ib-talk ).

What does all this mean for the IT professional?

Cyber insurers see the value of claims rise because of malicious attacks, especially because of RaaS, and are seeking to impose changes, such as a set of minimum standards, to underwrite cyber insurance. If you don’t have the minimum to meet their required control, they won’t grant the policy until you have. Accordingly, to mitigate effectively, the following standards are being proposed as a good start:

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This list is not exhaustive; cyber security best practices recommend implementing anti-virus protection and encryption as techniques to enable controls. Check out the cybersecurity & infrastructure security agency for ransomware guidelines CISA.GOV for a complete list.

Savvy Security Professionals Keep Copies of Data Offline and Offsite

Some of these standards are in addition to what is a customary approach to data protection and network security. Based on forensic data available, we know that more network and backup controls are necessary, because criminals are penetrating networks going undetected for many days, even months using sophisticated methods that could be resolved using known security techniques. It’s not a straightforward formula for insurers either. They also have OFAC requirements and advisory that must be met and depending on who the threat actor is or what country they’re operating from, they may exclude coverage. This is bad news for the insured and is more reason to understand why savvy security professionals keep copies of data off-line and off-site and understand that mitigating ransomware risk requires more than buying a cyber insurance policy. How can brokers and cyber insurance underwriters help stop this vicious cycle? Demanding stricter guidelines for coverage.

Quantum Solutions Help Organizations Mitigate Ransomware Risk

Quantum offers solutions to help you mitigate the risk of ransomware. You can rely on our ActiveScale object storage platform to secure data in flight and at rest with encryption and to further protect data against ransomware with Object Lock capability. Object Lock policy for retention and immutability, once set, can’t be modified, even with administrative permissions. 

Our Scalar tape libraries with Active Vault technology protects data against ransomware true air-gap protection and multi-factor authentication. The tape library with Active Vault creates an offline partition with an automated robot moving tape cartridges from a network connected partition to a vault partition. Quantum’s solutions have been designed to help organizations mitigate ransomware risk and comply with new cyber insurers’ demands. With that in mind, Quantum created simple and complete Ransomware Protection Packages that include all the security features needed to air-gap and securely vault your data, making your backups and long-term storage immutable. Check out our Ransomware Protection Packages here .  

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This Week at the Q

Archive Storage

Wondering about the role object storage plays in managing unstructured data, and when it’s the best option?  We have several new articles covering this, and more, in this week’s Top 5 happenings. 

1. VMblog.com published a new article, “The Cost and Value of Object Storage.” Object stores have long found a home in the cloud and inside data centers as long-term repositories for high-value data, but with demand for storage capacity growing daily, can you reap the benefits of object stores within budget?  In this new coverage, Quantum’s Technical Director, Matt Dewey, answers this and discusses the critical role object storage can play in managing unstructured data growth.

2. Another good read, and follow on, from Matt can be found on Continuity Central. Unstructured data is proliferating, creating both compliance and recovery risks. Matt explains why object storage is a promising option to help deal with this issue, and covers how to leverage data cataloging and management as the keys to success in “Addressing the risks related to unstructured data through the use of object stores.”

3. In this new blog, “Blocks, Files, Objects: What is Right for Your Application?” Rob Renzoni, Sr. Director Technical Sales at Quantum, points out how storage administrators have many storage-format options to choose from, such as block, object, file, and NAS. Making the right choice when selecting which format will best serve your organization’s data and workflow needs is critical to overall success. A poor choice can lead to data and application services delays, inflated costs, lack of scalability, complex management frameworks, and a host of other issues. He digs into some of the format options and what workflows they are best suited for.

4. I grew up watching Sir David Attenborough, and his inspiring coverage of our natural world. If you ever need a reminder of how amazing and beautiful the world we live in is, tune in to one of his shows! So I was excited to learn about the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in this newly published case study . BAS enables international scientists to conduct world-leading research in the Earth’s polar regions. Quantum Scalar tape libraries allow researchers to protect large volumes of critical research data while their ship – the RRS Sir David Attenborough – is at sea. Once each research trip ends, the IT team transports the high-capacity tapes back to the data center in England, where the organization makes the data available to a broad scientific community. I love knowing we’re a part of such incredible work!

BAS case study

5. We have big product news coming soon – in fact, three big pieces of product news, because they say the best things come in threes!  Register here for our upcoming VirtualQ | Transform event , on Thursday, November 19th, where we will be showcasing these new solutions, and more, in three tracks:

Data Management: The Need for Insights, Automation, and Visualization

Accelerate Time to Insights: The Future of StorNext and High-Performance Computing

Protect and Preserve: Assuring Data Accessibility Today and Into the Future

vqtransform

Leave a comment if there are topics you’d like to see added to our weekly top 5 happenings!

Natasha

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Rollerblades, Grocery Carts, and Ransomware

Archive Storage

Even if you haven’t been bitten by ransomware, I bet you know someone who has.  It’s an increasing problem for organizations as well.  Thankfully more and more are waking up to the fact that the best defense is a copy of data that’s “air-gapped” – not attached to any network.  One of the most cost-effective and safest ways to create an air-gapped copy of data is to put it on tape in a vault.

The great thing about a tape on a shelf in a secure location is there is absolutely no way that it can be accessed by a remote attacker.  But that doesn’t mean this method is necessarily easy or perfect.

Let me tell you a story.

Back in the early aughts, I was a pre-sales engineer for a little tape company called Advanced Digital Information Corp – ADIC – who later merged with Quantum.  I went to visit a company that had called us because their backups were suffering.  They could back data up, mostly, but had lots of media problems.  The problems extended to restores too, which was really bad.  In short, their system was unreliable, and they were desperate.

As we walked to the conference room, we passed a glass wall looking into the data center.  What I saw through that window froze me in my tracks.  This was a good-sized data center, with a few dozen rows of racks.  Each server – had to be hundreds of them – had its own DLT tape drive for nightly backups.  But it wasn’t just the fact that these guys hadn’t heard of automated tape libraries that horrified me.

There was an operator, wearing rollerblades, hurriedly pushing a wire grocery cart down the aisles.  He’d stop at each rack, yank the eject handle on every tape drive, grab the tapes (sometimes dropping them), and throw them into the grocery cart.  Sometimes he’d miss, and a tape would bounce off the cart and land on the floor.

I bet you can guess why the backups were unreliable.  Data tapes are reasonably tough, but they are precision mechanical devices.  If you toss them around like your Dad’s Led Zeppelin cassettes, you will have problems.  I did some education that day, and they eventually bought a robotic tape library from us.  Their backups reverted to the normal level of unreliability that we all experienced with DLT, and the operator got to retire his rollerblades.  Everyone was happy.

The point of this story is that the biggest problem with vaulting tapes is humans.  Humans lose tapes, misfile tapes, drop tapes, and just generally cause problems.  Humans are also expensive and paying them to shuffle boxes of tapes from one place to another is a waste.  You can pay for more slots and leave all your tapes in a robotic tape library, but then they aren’t offline, so they are exposed to ransomware risk.

Or are they?

Quantum has uniquely solved this problem in our Scalar tape libraries , with an optional feature called Active Vault.  Active Vault creates a secure, in-library vault for tapes using unlicensed slots.  It uses a dedicated partition in the library that has no tape drives and is totally isolated from external applications.  With Active Vault, when tapes are exported the robot moves them into the Active Vault partition, instead of the import/export door.  For the application to access them again, an operator must first log into the library remote GUI and move the tapes back from the Active Vault partition into the application partition.  But he doesn’t have to leave his chair.

But wait, there’s more…

Next to those pesky humans, use and time are the next biggest enemies of tape media.  With enough use and time tapes wear out.  This is something you don’t want to learn when you suddenly can’t read one.  In the Scalar i6 and i6000 libraries, you can have tapes in the Active Vault scanned periodically to ensure they are readable, and you will be alerted if one is getting sketchy before you lose data.  Try that with tapes on a dusty closet shelf!

Be nice to your tapes and they will be nice to you.  Let the robot handle them, and use Active Vault to lock a copy of your data away where ransomware can’t find it.

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