Date: Thursday 10th May 2012
Venue: Symantec, 88 Wood Street, London, EC2V 7AJ

To attend

Register here

Only a small percentage of organisations are getting the full benefits from their Symantec NetBackup environment. Join DCG Group and Symantec to learn how to optimise your data backup environment.

As well as presenting the features and benefits of newly launched Netbackup 7.5 and EV 10 we will discuss ways to help your organisation minimise cost, improve storage utilisation and control information risk.

A FAST WAY TO ADDRESS CRITICAL ISSUES

As part of this Workshop, DCG and Symantec will help you identify ways to significantly improve operations and deliver real cost efficiencies into your backup and recovery infrastructure DCG is accredited with Symantec’s highly recognised “Master Specialisation” in the area of data protection and is one of the largest users of Netbackup in EMEA with over 20PB under direct management. This unique endorsement demonstrates DCG’s ability to better meet the needs of NetBackup users by delivering highvalue managed services, support services, professional services and consultancy.

KEY BENEFITS OF THE WORKSHOP

Many organisations invest in robust, complex technology solutions but never realise the full financial benefits. Moreover, technology not deployed in its most optimal configuration can pose a business risk due to unplanned outages or extended recovery times. In a focused day DCG and Symantec can provide the expertise to mitigate these potential risks and maximise ROI.

THE WORKSHOP WILL INCLUDE:

• Global data deduplication with NetBackup
Data Centre
Remote sites

• Protecting your virtual and physical environments with NetBackup
• NetBackup 7.5 – A technical deep dive on what’s new and why you should upgrade
• Enterprise Vault 10 – latest updates
• Maximise return on investment – An interactive session on how to get the most from your NetBackup environment

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Being fit for business is imperative for all countries participating in a highly competitive global economy. For organisations around the world this means being able to continue to operate in the event of IT failure or major disaster, whether man-made or natural.

Regardless of their location, IT managers share a common challenge – keeping their business-critical digital assets safe and sound. Few businesses today can survive a major data loss without a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery (DR) strategy in place.

At the same time, the amount of data being created by businesses is outstripping their ability to store it. The Economist estimates that the amount of information created each year is growing at a 60% compounded rate. This view is supported by analyst firm IDC, which predicts the ‘digital universe’ will grow to 1.8 zettabytes (1.8 billion terabytes) in 2011, up 47% from 2010, and rocketing toward over 7ZB by 2015.

With the adoption of virtualisation, and the ongoing shift towards the cloud, DR strategies are becoming more complex. IT managers are now expected to keep data safely backed up in a hybrid environment consisting of physical, virtual and cloud infrastructures. The shift has seen companies adopting several different backup solutions at various points in time. While it’s typical to have two or three different backup solutions, it’s not uncommon to have as many as five or six. Evidently, a hybrid world is also a very complicated world.

Despite universal complexities, there is no global standard for backup and DR. This Acronis Disaster Recovery Index study demonstrates how countries across the globe have different confidence levels towards DR based on their culture, their adoption of new technology, faith in their backup procedures and level of executive buy-in. The study has identified that businesses have widely varying views about what backup and recovery attributes are required to confidently survive a disaster.

However, there is just one point on which all countries agree: They all want a single backup and DR solution that can easily and reliably span the needs of their hybrid environment.

The global economy has entered a period of unparalleled data growth that is putting unprecedented strain on IT infrastructure. By gaining a more detailed understanding of what makes one nation excel in the Acronis Global Disaster Recovery Index stakes, others on the list will be able to identify best practice trends and adopt a similar path to improve their DR strategy. Likewise, they can compare how they measure up to their peers in their own country.

Download the full PDF here

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Although S\storage systems revenue grew during the fourth quarter of 2011 and for the entire year, that growth slowed compared to previous periods.

According to IDC’s worldwide quarterly disk storage systems tracker, external disk systems (networked storage) increased 7.7% year-over-year to $6.6 billion in the last quarter of 2011. That compares to 16.2% year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2010, and 10.8% growth in the third quarter of 2011.

For the full year, external disk storage revenue increased 10.6% in 2011 compared to 18.3% growth in 2010.

The rate of growth slowed across categories that IDC tracks – open SAN, NAS and iSCSI. SAN storage revenue grew 14.1% and iSCSI storage revenue increased 16.6% year-over-year for the fourth quarter of 2011, while NAS disk storage revenue actually declined by 1.2%. In the fourth quarter of 2010, SAN revenue grew 15.1%, iSCSI increased 42.1% and NAS grew 21.7%.

IDC senior research analyst Amita Potnis said the slower growth was caused mostly by sharp gains in 2010 as the industry moved out of the recession that made for difficult comparisons in 2011, as well as reductions caused by the cloud and storage efficiency technologies. She said the hard drive shortage caused by the Thailand floods had little impact during the end of 2011, but is hurting sales this year.

“Two technology trends have had a big impact on the market,” she said. “If a storage system is sold to cloud service providers, we count it. But a significant amount of cloud storage capacity does not come from external storage system purchases, so that has an impact. Also, storage efficiency technologies such as deduplication, compression, virtualization and thin provisioning have a significant impact on the market. End users can adjust their buying strategies and use what they have more efficiently.”

Potnis said solid-state drives (SSDs) remain at below 10% of external storage system revenue.

NAS revenue declined despite research showing file storage is outpacing block storage growth. Potnis said NAS grew more than 40% in every quarter of 2010 and that growth rate was difficult to sustain in 2011.

“Also, the types of data on NAS devices – backup and archive – are main candidates for data deduplication and transfer to the cloud,” she said. “So the impact from cloud and storage efficiency is greater on NAS than block data. But we expect file data will continue to grow faster than application or block storage.”

IDC also reported the high-end segment – systems selling for $250,000 and up – had the highest growth rate of all price segments. High-end storage systems increased to 30% in the fourth quarter of 2011, up from 28.2% in 2010.

EMC extended its lead in external storage market share during the fourth quarter of 2011, growing 22.4% — nearly triple the overall growth rate. EMC’s revenue share was 29.4%, compared to 25.9% in the fourth quarter of 2010. IBM retained second place with flat revenue year-over-year, but its share dropped from 16.4% last year to 15.2%. NetApp slipped slightly ahead of Hewlett-Packard into third place, although IDC lists them as tied because they are less than one percent apart. NetApp grew 16.6% in the quarter for an 11.2% market share. HP revenue fell 3.8% in the quarter for 10.3% share. In the fourth quarter of 2010, HP had 11.6% share with NetApp at 10.3%. Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) was fifth last quarter, growing 11.6% for 9.2% share.

For the entire year, EMC increased external disk systems revenue 23.6% and increased its market share 3% in 2011 to 28.5%. IBM grew 8.9% over the year and stands second with 13.5%. NetApp grew the most for 2011 following an acquisition of LSI’s Engenio storage business, increasing revenue 23.7% to take 12.4% market share. HP grew 7.7% and slipped from a statistical tie with NetApp in 2010 to fourth with 10.7% in 2011. HDS grew 18.8% for the year and held 8.8% of the market. HDS overtook Dell for fifth for the year, as Dell’s revenue tumbled following the end of its OEM partnership with EMC.

Original Article posted here

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Date: Thursday 19th April 2012
Location: The Brewery, Chiswell Street, London, EC1Y 4SD

To attend

Register here

Only a small percentage of organisations are getting the full benefits from their Symantec NetBackup environment.

Join Data Continuity Group (DCG) and Symantec to learn how to optimise your data backup environment. As well as presenting the features and benefits of newly launched Netbackup 7.5 and EV 10 we will discuss ways to help your organisation minimise cost, improve storage utilisation and control information risk.

The seminar will include:

• NetBackup 7.5 – A Technical Deep Dive on What’s New

      - Symantec NetBackup with V-Ray

      - Unifying backup

      - Deduplication

      - Replication

      - Snapshots and appliances in a single product

• Protecting your virtual environment with NetBackup
• Enterprise Vault 10 – latest updates
• NetBackup appliances
• Managed Services – A Service delivery option that delivers
• DCG’s NetBackup Support and Implementation Services

A fast way to address critical issues

As part of this Workshop, DCG and Symantec will help you identify ways to significantly improve operations in order to make the fastest, most significant impact on the overall health of the NetBackup environment.

DCG is accredited with Symantec’s highly recognised “Master Specialisation” in the area of data protection. This unique endorsement demonstrates DCG’s ability to better meet the needs of NetBackup users by delivering high-value services, including; consultancy, implementation and support, around their existing NetBackup infrastructure.

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Outline and Report

This event took place last week and the attached report gives an outline of the seminar and its speakers.

Information governance and the management of data is no longer just the concern of the IT department – but has become a key corporate and commercial issue. Never more has it been true to consider information as the lifeblood of the organisation. We have all become only too well aware of the catastrophic operational and financial impact to the business of losing data. Consequently, we have seen a tightening of the corporate compliance obligations now placed upon businesses to align their data strategies to much higher standards.

Information can be your greatest asset and our greatest liability. Managed properly, it can accelerate growth. Managed poorly, it can drive up costs and expose your business to risk. In the face of this, many organisations are now re-evaluating their IT solutions with regard to information management, availability, scalability, efficiency and cost; so it is particularly important, now more than ever, to assess the potential business benefits from managed services in the area of data backup and disaster recovery. The primary objective is to feel 100% confident that your most prized asset – your data – is managed, protected and recoverable, whenever and wherever you need it – and arguably the recovery component is the most important ingredient.

Most organisations are embracing virtualisation – certainly in the back office with servers, and since the turn of the year are beginning to make the shift to virtual storage and desktop service provision… The pulse of the room was typical of NCCs recent cloud and VDI events 60% doing it and 40% still evaluating and realigning their strategic thinking. Certainly it feels more a case of when than if…. The next 12-24 months will also see a major shift to Cloud services – VDR and managed services in particular playing an increasingly important role as organisations are increasingly losing any appetite for CAPEX. If you still need convincing – on what, how and where to virtualise your data backup and disaster recovery – hopefully the various formal presentations, not least the user case study outlined a clear routemap of the key drivers.

To view the complete report please click here

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Q1 – Who can see my data when it is held by a managed service provider in the cloud??

Data loss is now a reality and a sizeable chunk of all data loss incidents are either down internal or human vulnerabilities or to third party providers. You need to know whether the service provider, can see your data. Most have this ability. But, do they have the controls in place to avoid sending, copying, emailing etc etc your data? Remember they will be responsible for your data but, the liability remains with you…

Q2 – What happens if the service provider lost some of your data?

You need to ask your cloud service provider what their data protection policy is and what their audit procedures are. And then you should perform due diligence on those procedures.

Q3 – Where is my data located?

What does the third party organisation do to separate information and systems? You need to stipulate your requirements around co-location and or separation. Could your competitors – who may also be using the service – get their hands on your data? You really need to get this one answered!

Q4 – What happens in the event of data corruption?

How many copies of your data does the third party have? Do they use incremental backups and can they reconstruct an image of your data at a given point in the past from these partial backups. How far back to their backups go in calendar terms?

Q5 – How easy is it to migrate to another cloud service provider?

This all too often a question few companies ask – until it’s too late. Porting data between cloud service providers is a relatively new capability and only a small number of service providers have implemented what will become a very necessary service.

The Data Continuity Group would welcome the chance to help you understand what to look for when choosing a data protection (data backup, archive and recovery) managed service provider. Click here for more information Managed Services

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Information can be your greatest asset or your greatest liability. Managed properly, it can accelerate growth. Managed poorly, it can drive up costs and expose your business to risk. In the face of this, many organisations are now re-evaluating their IT solutions with regard to information management, availability, scalability, efficiency and cost; so it is particularly important, now more than ever, to assess the potential business benefits from managed services in the area of data backup and disaster recovery.

The primary objective is to feel 100% confident that your most important asset – your data – is managed, protected and recoverable, whenever and wherever you need it. If you still need convincing – and continue to ask why an organisation should virtualise their data backup and disaster recovery – there are many different reasons. To understand more attend a free seminar, hosted by the National Computing Centre and supported by Symantec, Dell and Data Continuity Group. The seminar entitled “Managing Data Lifecycles in the Enterprise and Cloud” will be held at the British Library on February 8th from 9.30 am – 1.30 pm and includes lunch.

Here is a snapshot of what will be discussed at the seminar:

• How to manage virtual data backup and disaster recovery.
• Understand the real issue around data security and information governance.
• Improved disaster recovery solutions.
• Improved information reliability and flexibility.
• Managed services as part of a cost containment strategy.
• Reduce capital and operational expenditure.
• Overcoming the standards challenge and meeting compliance obligations.

Click HERE to read more and register for the event.

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17^th October 2011 – UK based DCG Group, a leading managed services company specialising in data continuity, is proud to announce it has been awarded the prestigious Symantec Master Specialist Partnership in Data Protection.

Symantec recognises DCG’s significant, comprehensive and proven expertise in planning, designing, implementing and managing complete backup and recovery, archiving and reporting capabilities of information across an organisation. This achievement sets DCG apart from other providers of data continuity solutions and service providers.

By achieving Master Specialisation DCG has met Symantec’s stringent standards for advanced consulting and technical services, in particular using Symantec’s NetBackup and BackupExec products in data protection solutions.

“We are delighted to have achieved this specialisation, this demonstrates DCG’s ability to focus on helping our customers receive increased value from their Symantec investments.  Skilled IT resources can be difficult to find and retain,” said Martin Peck, DCG’s CEO.  “IT teams are under constant pressure to focus on new projects while achieving SLAs for existing systems.  At the same time, data volumes continue to grow and IT environments are becoming increasingly complex, driving up IT risk.  Through its comprehensive managed services and solutions DCG Group provides its customers with peace of mind, improved service levels and reduced total cost of ownership,” continued Peck.

FLEXIBILITY PUTS DCG IN THE NEWS

“With DCG Managed Services in place, we don’t have to worry about our data – we know it is being backed up securely and is in safe hands. Only DCG were able to offer us the flexibility in services which we need.”

Ben Dyer, Joint Head of IT at leading media group Northern & Shell.

DCG provides its data backup and disaster recovery Managed Services to Northern & Shell, owners of Express Newspapers, Channel 5, OK! Magazine and a host of other successful fitles. As well as providing flexibility in services, DCG offer the assurance of the ISO27001 standard for information security.

NORTHERN & SHELL GROUP

Northern & Shell was founded in December 1974 with the vision of becoming a significant force in British and worldwide media. That ambition was developed through a broad portfolio of magazines and broadcast interests and came of age with the acquisitions of Express Newspapers in November 2000 and Channel 5 in July 2010. Today, Northern & Shell owns four national newspapers and is a 50 per cent joint venture partner in two more in Ireland. In Channel 5 the company owns one of Britain’s leading national terrestrial television networks. It is also at the forefront of digital media as a key stakeholder in YouView, the world’s leading internet television service. Northern & Shell dominates important parts of the consumer magazine market both in the UK and worldwide, including OK! And Star! Magazines. It operates in all major areas of publishing and has diverse interests in new media, print, distribution, investment and property. As Britain’s leading independent publisher and a key player in both broadcasting and digital media, the future is brighter than ever for Northern & Shell, with the launch of the Health Lottery scheduled for this autumn.

GROWTH DRIVES NEED FOR CHANGE

Northern & Shell has offices around UK and overseas, with all operations run from the headquarters building in London. A team of 23 people run IT services for the whole group, operating at maximum levels of efficiency to provide everything from programming to front line support for an international workforce of around 2,000 staff.

Rapid growth in the business was bringing sharp increases in data volumes to be safely stored and backed up. Ben Dyer, Joint Head of IT at the Group, was looking at how best to manage backup securely in the future and provide for further growth in data volumes.

“We had previously used NetBackup on site here, managed internally, using our own hardware and purchasing necessary licences,” he explains. “However, the system was at the end of its life, already at capacity, with hardware due for replacement. We were going to have to upgrade and buy new software. We would need to continue to use internal resources to support and manage our backup.”

“We had also recently purchased a new finance system, which was not compatible with our existing backup, and the requirement from our auditors was that we must achieve a viable new solution for data backup and disaster recovery.”

OPTING FOR MANAGED SERVICES

Ben Dyer and his team reviewed the costs of investing in their own new backup system and managing it themselves but there would be major challenges.

“The costs of going out and buying a new system and operating it were high and we particularly wanted to free up internal resources,” he says. “Backup was very time-consuming for the team – a two hour task each morning changing tapes and dealing with any issues that happened overnight.”

“We need our team to be working on more high-level tasks.”

Ben decided to investigate alternative ways of managing Northern & Shell data backup, with a Managed Services provider, in order to reduce costs and save time.

A CLEAR SOLUTION

Northern & Shell maintains its products and activities as benchmarks of excellence to its readers, customers, advertisers and business partners. It was therefore important that Ben Dyer found a provider of Managed Services for data backup who would be aligned with the highest standards in its quality of service and customer focus.

After presentations from leading providers, Northern & Shell decided to award the contract for management of their data backup to DCG Group.

“DCG Group is providing a completed managed data backup and disaster recovery solution for the entire estate of Northern & Shell on an international basis,” confirms Ben Dyer. “This includes backup of all data for Express Newspapers, OK! Magazine, Star! Magazine, Channel 5, and now for the new Health Lottery to be launched this year.”

FLEXIBILITY IS KEY

Essential to the operations of Northern & Shell is the building of dedicated teams with pride in what they produce and a willingness to respond to customer needs. This spirit is matched by DCG Group, who demonstrated the willingness to offer flexible services to win Northern & Shell business.

“Only DCG Group could offer us the flexibility in Managed Services which we require, with several options which we can tailor to our needs,” says Ben Dyer. “This is a big factor for us, as the expectation is that we will grow, and need to adapt services. Other suppliers could provide us with only one fixed solution.”

“DCG has already provided us with a seamless upgrade to the services estate as our data volumes have increased – it’s a great example of how scalable and flexible they are.”

“It’s a classic example of not knowing what’s round the corner. The DCG team understands our requirements, gives us options in services and a contract with flexibility.”

ACCREDITATION MATTERS

Another key factor for Ben Dyer in selecting DCG Group to provide Managed Services to Northern & Shell was the requirement of company auditors that data backup from the new finance system must be carried out to recognised standards.

“The auditors on their annual visit are looking at our finance systems to check that data is being backed up consistently and retained securely, and that we can restore data in the case of any corruption or loss,” explains Ben.

DCG proved that their technical skills and standards for data backup and disaster recovery were at the highest level.

“The fact that DCG Group holds the ISO27001 standard for information security was important for us and for the auditors,” says Ben.

COST BENEFITS

“DCG costs are also competitive in their costings,” adds Ben Dyer.

DCG Managed Services are charged on a regular subscription basis and this made it easier for Ben Dyer to get Board approval to go ahead with the DCG contract.

“It was going to be big capital expenditure project for us to replace our backup hardware and purchase new backup licences,” he explains. “It was a big advantage in winning our case with the Board that there are no big initial costs and regular predictable monthly instalments rather than a lump sum investment.”

“We are spending less and getting value for money.”

“Because of the flexibility of our contract with DCG, we know that we can adapt services as the business changes, without having to go back to the Board for increased payments.”

BUSINESS BENEFITS

“The biggest benefit for us in our contract with DCG Group is that we have freed up resources in the IT team which are expensive and which are valuable to us,” says Ben Dyer. “

“Routine backups are crucial and with the managed service provided by DCG, our IT support team are on hand to focus on business priority tasks – as a result we are getting added value from the service.”

“Also, we have peace of mind, knowing that our data backup is not only running but is being checked. DCG engineers are pro-active on any failures overnight and notify us in the morning – they fix it for us before we even know we have a problem.”

“We are comfortable our data is in safe hands and the business benefits from the cost savings as well,” concludes Ben Dyer. “Without question, I would recommend DCG Group and we are exploring buying extra services from them already.”

CUSTOMER OPTIONS

“We are committed to matching our customers’ requirements and have the technical skills to be able to offer flexibility to fast-moving businesses like Northern & Shell,” says Peter Wilks, Director, DCG Group.

Northern & Shell Group Case Study Download | Northern & Shell’s Website

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