2019 Predictions to Address Intelligent Information Management for Microsoft Cloud – Archive360

Archive360, Inc., in intelligent information management solutions, announced a series of predictions for 2019.

The predictions focus on what enterprises will need to know to manage and protect their data in the New Year and beyond. The predictions highlight three key areas: machine learning (analytics), data protection and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Analytics: Machine Learning Will Take Center Stage
When it comes to the new face of analytics, the company predicts that in the coming year, enterprises will adopt increased use of the cloud for machine learning in order to gain a long-term business advantage. To achieve defensible disposition of live data and ongoing auto-categorization, more companies will turn to a self-learning or ‘unsupervised’ machine learning model, in which the program literally trains itself based on the data set provided. This means there will be no need for a training data set or training cycles.

In preparation for a machine learning program to manage their data, Archive360 recommends that companies ensure that all of their data is centrally stored and available, regularly syncing employee computers and downloading data on laptops to a central location. Predictive auto-categorization of this nature will help enterprises contend with large volumes of unmanaged employee data. The firm emphasizes that in order to keep costs low; it will be critical for cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure to offer machine-learning technology as an included service, as Microsoft has done.

Security: Pivot to Cloud Data Protection Will Accelerate
Archive360 predicts that the upcoming year will see enterprises turn toward embracing a new method of data protection in a cloud environment to help protect data from ransomware attackers: Isolated Recovery. This refers to the recovery of known good/clean data and involves generating a ‘gold copy’ pre-infection backup. This backup is completely isolated to keep the data pristine and available for use. Relying on the principles of isolation and ‘air gaps,’ this strategy uses an isolated storage repository that’s not connected to the network, with all users restricted except those with proper clearance.

In 2019, Archive360 advises that it will become increasingly important for enterprises to understand the concept of air gaps and their relation to the cloud. An air gap requires a storage system that’s disconnected from the outer world, even though cloud storage systems are connected by design for IT to be able to access. That’s why the ‘gold copy’ status of the backup is such an important requirement for an isolated recovery system. The vendor expects to see a growing number of enterprises with company critical data begin using regularly scheduled, separate backup saved to Azure WORM storage as part of their DR planning.

Compliance:
Post-GDPR, Companies Won’t Leave Regulatory Compliance to Chance
With GDPR now in effect that strengthens the rights of data subjects and levies high penalties against non-compliant organizations, the company predicts that 2019 will be the year of universal attention toward tightening up systems around regulatory compliance. There’s no wiggle room here, as California’s digital privacy law passed in 2018 also impacts the national and global economy, and ups the ante for compliance procedures in the U.S. similar to GDPR.

Enterprises will thus turn to cloud-based data archiving in 2019 to respond to e-discovery requests in a legally defensible manner. To prove legal defensibility during data migration, chain of custody and data fidelity are both required. Competitive enterprises will seek a solution that will seamlessly migrate the critical data requested by eDiscovery in hours or days, not weeks or months, and will increasingly choose implementation on a platform built on and integrated with Microsoft’s Azure Cloud for data migration, cloud-managed archiving, and information management. Such a platform allows for leveraging the power and elasticity of Azure for compliant and intelligent storage, elastic search, archiving, retention/disposition, and case management.

“Taking a very strategic approach to intelligent information management will be a major game changer in 2019 when it comes to managing, protecting, and archiving the vast and diverse universe of applications and data, each of which have different business, legal, regulatory, and/or budgeting requirements,” said Bill Tolson, VP marketing, Archive360. “Companies that pay attention to this wave of the future when it comes to analytics, security, and compliance are going to have a big advantage over their competitors who don’t.”

Archive360’s Archive2Azure delivers an intelligent and information management platform. It addresses key requirements, which include ensuring all data is stored in its original format, is WORM compliant, is secure, and can be found and retrieved quickly. All data is maintained in the customer’s own Azure tenancy, retention/disposition policies can be easily assigned, chain of custody is maintained, powerful audit and reporting for peace of mind, and more.