DCIG-Analyst-Insights-Episode-1
00:00 Introduction
00:03 Jerome Wendt Welcome and Introduction
00:47 Ken Clipperton on High End Storage Array research
01:32 Todd Dorsey on Hyper-converged Infrastructure research
02:14 Jerome Wendt on Microsoft 365 Backup research
04:20 Jerome Wendt wrap-up
This is DCIG’s first ever attempt at doing a bit of live video blogging that we’re publishing on our YouTube channel. What we’re doing at the end of each of our weekly DCIG analyst meetings is sharing some thoughts about some of the topics that are on our mind, or research we’re working on, and what we’re doing this week. Two of my colleagues are on our weekly analyst call, and we’re going to share some of the specific research we’re working on for upcoming analyst reports we’re producing.
In that vein, my name is Jerome Wendt. I’m the President and founder of DCIG. My two colleagues will introduce themselves and talk about what they’re working on. Then I will close up this short video blog. Ken, turning it over to you.
Ken Clipperton: High end Storage Array research
Great. Thanks Jerome. I’ve recently completed research into high end storage arrays, and we anticipate publishing a report around that theme in January of 2023. Immediately after that I’m going to expand that research to the Enterprise All-flash Array marketplace.
Not all high end storage arrays are all-flash. Many do offer options that include, or even are centered around, disk-based hard disk-based storage, or hybrid storage as it’s typically been called. Many people, when thinking of performance, think all-flash array. That’s not necessarily the case. Some of the architectures enable high performance, even with disk providing a significant portion of the capacity.
Todd Dorsey: Hyper-converged Infrastructure Research
My name is Todd Dorsey and I’m a Storage Analyst with DCIG. I’ve been with DCIG about two years and am currently working on research around Hyper-converged Infrastructure.
I’m just getting started on that and surveying the marketplace and seeing what’s out there currently. In terms of some early observations, we can divide the marketplace into software and hardware vendors. Some offer both, but looking at all the HCI vendors across the world there’s a large number of them, a solid 50 or more, that offer these products. I’m hoping to have one or more reports that begin in the first quarter.
Jerome Wendt: Microsoft 365 Backup Research
Todd, Ken, thank you for your insights.
Again, my name is Jerome Wendt. I’m President and founder of DCIG, and I primarily focus on the Data Protection side of DCIG’s different technology practices.
Right now, I’m working on Microsoft 365 Backup, and this is actually my second go-round covering this particular topic. We produced some reports on this a couple of years ago. Now we’re coming back and refreshing it.
Believe it or not, this market has significantly changed and matured over the last couple of years. Last time, there were 15 to 18 providers in this space. There’s now upwards of 30 providers who do Microsoft 365 backup. These are all SaaS Solutions, so when you think about doing Microsoft 365 backup some companies may think they can use their existing backup software; like they need an enterprise backup software product, such as Commvault or NetBackup or NetVault Backup, or products that do have a Microsoft 365 component. But now there’s again 30 plus providers. You could just subscribe to a backend Microsoft 365 as a service that focuses in on that.
The secondary observation is that there’s this whole new genre of SaaS backup providers. Some of the providers who do Microsoft 365 backup maybe have their origins in backing up virtual machines or on-premises, and they’ve now got a SaaS offering. But there’s now this new whole new category of Microsoft 365 backup providers who backup SaaS applications that store data in the cloud.
Maybe you’re familiar with Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, but there’s also QuickBooks Online and Dropbox. These products focus on backing up data that’s hosted by SaaS applications that store data and there’s not a lot of them out there yet. There are three or four providers already that focus on the nuances of that the security around that and just even the challenges of doing restore in that space. They optimize their applications for that purpose so that’s an interesting trend I’m already seeing beginning to emerge. You’re probably going to see more of it in the coming years.
Jerome Wendt Wrap-up
To close, I wanted to thank again Ken and Todd for joining in on this little segment. We hope to do this every week at the end of our meetings giving a five-to-ten-minute recap of what we’re seeing in the marketplace.
Thanks for joining in. I hope you check out this channel from time to time and see what’s online with the DCIG analyst team. Thank you very much. Bye.