Lessons Learned at MS Ignite

The tech industry, and collective customers around the world, have just gone through a year like no other. And while the global pandemic initially presented IT with no shortage of challenges – like how to move an entire workforce to remote work, seemingly overnight – companies are beginning to look at how to turn the challenges of the past year into opportunities for the future. The opportunities at hand – to seize the moment for cloud and digital transformation – were pervasive throughout the spirit of this week’s Microsoft Ignite.  At Metallic, we are also seeing the same current of change among our customers: companies are now looking to how new technologies, like Metallic BaaS, shift thinking about what is possible as they secure and protect their data in our new reality.

As I listened to the sessions, there were 4 key topics that kept coming up…

1. The time to embrace the new workforce reality, is now

There is a new global reality that has been imposed by the pandemic, with the normalization of remote work being supported by technological platforms to help people work better together, even while not being physically together. This is no longer being thought of as a temporary situation, and companies are increasingly pivoting to embrace their remote workforce as essential to their growth and profitability. This was spotlighted at Microsoft Ignite through the many new tech solutions being introduced, including the many cool enhancements around Microsoft Teams – a pillar of remote collaboration and productivity.

2. Working from home, means more data – in more places

As many of my colleagues noted in the sessions, over the last 12 months, businesses have adopted a variety of solutions to manage the huge explosion of data and expansive endpoint infrastructure management. To manage this shift, performance priorities have shifted to focus on:

• Increased flexibility
• Uncompromised security
• Optimized cost-effectiveness
• Network scalability

This includes deploying cloud-based data protection technologies with flexibility the hybrid cloud demands. With no hallway conversations out there to help get work done, reliance on the data created in SaaS applications is stronger than ever. Organizations have come to understand how critical comprehensive data management is to keep their business protected and help them leverage their assets to the fullest potential.

3. Taking advantage of new opportunities requires strong partners, and trusted leaders

This is a time when trust is more important than ever. Change is accelerating, risk is up and stakes are high.  I have a great appreciation for Metallic’s strategic partnership with Microsoft Azure – and the industry-leading technologies we can jointly deliver for our customers. We leverage the durability and the performance, scale, and reliability of Azure, combined with Commvault leading data management technology to bring best of breed, SaaS data protection to the market. In that way – we have an unfair advantage in the industry – and one our customers benefit from.

This innovation will continue to help Metallic introduce new features and functionality with incredible speed, such as the recent enhanced Teams data protection capabilities, protection for containers as companies modernize their apps, and the protection for new workloads companies are using to power their businesses – like Oracle and SAP HANA – in Azure or on premises.

4. We all have obstacles to overcome – but make them count.

Just as we didn’t expect a pandemic, no organization anticipates data loss. The time is now to be prepared. Our Metallic solution, in partnership with Microsoft, enables organizations to transform their data management and data protection while handling unexpected challenges, no matter where they are on their digital transformation journey. With our breadth of workloads protected, our unique flexibility to manage data at the edge, and our trusted leadership, Metallic also helps meet the needs of the shifting industry landscape – including remote work enablement, end-to-end security, regulatory compliance, and hybrid platform support.

With these lessons learned, the time is now to ensure that your data is protected, as we continue in these unprecedented times. If you want to check out my LinkedIn Live, you can find the replay here.