Dave Raffo
Consulting Analyst
Dave Raffo is a Consulting Analyst at DCIG. Dave has been a technology analyst and journalist for 30 years. He covered cloud storage, storage-as-a-service and integrated infrastructure as a senior analyst at Evaluator Group and Futurum Group before joining DCIG. He previously spent more than 25 years as a tech journalist, including 18 years coverage enterprise storage and data protection.
Dave worked for 13 years at TechTarget as Editorial Director and Executive News Editor for storage, data protection and converged infrastructure. During that time, he led TechTarget’s storage coverage. In 2020, Dave won an American Society of Business Professional Editors (ASBPE) national award for column writing.
His previous jobs covering technology include news editor at Byte and Switch, managing editor of EdTech Magazine, and features and new products editor at Windows Magazine. Before turning to technology, he was an editor and sports reporter for United Press International in New York for 12 years. A New Jersey native, Dave currently lives in northern Virginia.
Dave holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Journalism from William Patterson University.
Continuous Data Access for 1 SaaS Application Has Changed the Data Protection Conversation
Organizations of all sizes and in all verticals increasingly depend upon SaaS applications to have continuous data access in their day-to-day business operations. However, this SaaS model comes with a catch. Using SaaS applications and storing data in the cloud transfers responsibility for that underlying infrastructure to SaaS and cloud providers. This model works well until the SaaS application, the cloud storage it uses, or the connection between them becomes unavailable. HYCU R-Serve for iManage begins to address this emerging issue of continuous data access for one SaaS application, iManage. Rather than restoring data, R-Serve offers continuous data access to iManage data that HYCU R-Cloud already protects.
5 Early Insights on NAS Appliances Demonstrate Their Improved Positioning as Backup Targets
Organizations have long used network attached storage (NAS) appliances as backup targets because they provide familiar, flexible, and accessible storage. However, ransomware and rapid backup growth now force organizations to demand more from the NAS systems protecting their backup data. These requirements increasingly include immutability, cyber resilience, high-speed recovery, greater capacity, and tighter backup software integration. To help organizations identify these systems, DCIG has begun researching cyber resilient NAS appliances that providers specifically position for backup
Choose the “Best” HCI OS from 14 Classifications
“Private Cloud Operating System”, or PCOS, has emerged as the latest term for a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) operating system (OS). Yet, for better or worse, organizations will find at least fourteen terms that classify today’s available HCI OSes. As such, organizations may shrug off PCOS as more HCI noise with it no different than any other HCI OS. While admittedly easy, this does not represent the right time to shrug off the importance of distinguishing between these 14 different HCI OSes. The entire HCI market remains in flux as organizations consider their next moves with HCI solutions in this post-VMware world.
DCIG Launches Research into 100+ NAS Systems to Identify the Industry’s TOP 5 General-Purpose Backup Appliances
DCIG has identified more than 20 storage providers offering 100+ NAS systems explicitly positioned for backup workloads. These numbers reflect how NAS platforms remain a viable option for organizations building scalable, cyber-resilient backup repositories. Despite this common use case, enterprise buyers lack objective guidance for evaluating NAS systems specifically for backup. Recognizing this gap, DCIG has initiated comprehensive research into using NAS systems as general-purpose backup appliances. This research will culminate in multiple DCIG TOP 5 reports identifying the ones best suited for modern enterprise backup environments.
New DCIG Competitive Intelligence Report Explores AI Storage Differences Between HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000 and Dell PowerScale
Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly moved from experimental projects to strategic business initiatives. Organizations now expect AI to improve productivity, accelerate decision-making, increase revenue opportunities, and create competitive advantages. As AI deployments mature, however, enterprises frequently discover that GPUs and AI models alone do not determine success. Increasingly, the underlying storage infrastructure dictates whether AI initiatives can efficiently scale into production.