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.
ExaGrid EX189 Recognized in the 2026-27 DCIG TOP 5 Cyber Resilient PBBAs – 3PB+ Logical Global Edition Report
The latest 2026-27 DCIG TOP 5 Cyber Resilient PBBAs – 3PB+ Logical Global Editionreport helps enterprises identify the best PBBAs that offer three petabytes or more of logical capacity. This research evaluates 21 3PB+ logical cyber resilient purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs) across more than 250 features and capabilities. It then identifies the five best 3PB+ logical cyber resilient PBBAs that protect, secure, and recover their data in today’s hostile cyber environment.
ExaGrid EX540-SSD Earns Recognition in the 2026-27 DCIG TOP 5 Cyber Resilient PBBAs – All-Flash Edition Report
The now released 2026-27 DCIG TOP 5 Cyber Resilient PBBAs – All-Flash Edition report helps enterprises identify the best all-flash PBBAs. This research evaluates fourteen all-flash purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs) across more than 250 features and capabilities. It then identifies the five best all-flash PBBAs that protect, secure, and recover their data in today’s hostile cyber environment.
9 Innovative Trends Shaping the PBBA Market: From Backup Targets to Cyber Resilience Platforms
Ransomware continues to reshape how enterprises evaluate purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs). Backup performance, data reduction, and scalability remain important, no doubt. However, organizations increasingly prioritize PBBAs that strengthen cyber resilience and accelerate recovery from increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. DCIG’s recent research into all-flash cyber resilient PBBAs reveals several notable market trends beyond traditional backup capabilities. These findings highlight how providers integrate AI-driven analytics, identity security, cloud connectivity, and recovery-focused features. These 9 key trends that now shape the PBBA market came out of the research and TOP 5 Cyber Resilient PBBA reports being released shortly.
Two-for-One Unified Infrastructure Platform Key to a Successful VMware Exit
Organizations evaluating Kubernetes increasingly find themselves trying to solve two interconnected challenges: modernizing applications while reducing their VMware dependency. To achieve this objective, more organizations evaluate layered Kubernetes architectures built on VMware-centric environments. However, these layered architectures create their own set of challenges. Built on separate virtualization, storage, networking, and Kubernetes operational domains, they become costly and difficult to implement and maintain. To avoid these challenges, organizations should consider choosing a unified infrastructure platform that offers a two-for-one. This platform supports both VM and cloud-native workloads while offering a consistent operational model to manage them.
AI Workloads Driving Evolution of Datacenter Infrastructure Paradigm
Today, more than ever, technology providers focus their messaging on how their solutions better equip organizations to implement AI. This messaging certainly makes sense in today’s AI-obsessed world. Organizations must often minimally upgrade, if not replace, their existing technology to ready their datacenters to run AI workloads.