ST1907

STOR 

MAGAZINE 

STORAGE 

The UK’s number one in IT Storage 

July/August 2019 

Vol 19, Issue 4 

TO THE VICTORS THE SPOILS: 

2019 Storage Awards winners in full 

INTERVIEWS: 

Verbatim, Panasas 

DATA CENTRE STRATEGIES: 

HDD, SSD, hybrid? 

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT? 

Media industry rallies against ransomware 

COMMENT - NEWS - NEWS ANALYSIS - CASE STUDIES - OPINION - PRODUCT REVIEWS

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TO THE VICTORS THE SPOILS: 

 

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT? 

 


Vol 19, Issue 4 

CONTENTS 

STOR 

MAGAZINE 

STORAGE 

CONTENTS 

INTERVIEWS: 

 

DATA CENTRE STRATEGIES: 

 

 

Comment.......................................4 

SUNNY OUTLOOK FOR CLOUD? 

18 

STORAGE AWARDS 2019…..….…..6 

Another extraordinary night was had by all at this year's Storage 

Awards - see the full list of winners here 

CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE….18 

Sara Lisamore, Senior EMEA Program Manager at Seagate, explains 

the thinking behind the company's Seagate Insider program, which 

won the Channel Partner Program of the Year category at this year's 

Storage Awards 

20 

BRIDGING THE GAP……………....….22 

Joseph O'Halloran of Titan Data Solutions explains why distributors 

need to 'add more value than just a price point' if they want to 

compete in today's shifting marketplace 

INTERVIEW: VERBATIM………...….24 

This year isn't just the 50th anniversary of the moon landings - it also 

sees 50 years of Verbatim. Storage magazine editor David Tyler 

speaks with the company's president, Clive Alberts 

22 

TECHNOLOGY: 

DATA CENTRES…............................26 

Big data, analytics and machine learning, IoT applications, 

on-demand approaches, security and backup criteria: modern 

storage solutions do not have to be complex, explains Rainer Kaese 

of Toshiba Electronics Europe 

26 

INTERVIEW: PANASAS……....……30 

Faye Pairman, CEO and President, Panasas, speaks to Storage 

magazine editor David Tyler about how making storage manageable 

is key to succeeding in the HPC market 

OPINION: RANSOMWARE…….….32 

Rod Harrison of StorCentric explains how the media & entertainment 

industry can 'rein in the ransomware beast' 

32 

HEADS IN THE CLOUD……….....….34 

Recent research indicates that many CXOs are looking to embrace 

Cloud Data Management to better meet protection needs and 

leverage the power of their data 

www.storagemagazine.co.uk @STMagAndAwards July/August 2019 

^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

03

COMMENT 

EDITOR: David Tyler 

david.tyler@btc.co.uk 

SUB EDITOR: Mark Lyward 

mark.lyward@btc.co.uk 

REVIEWS: Dave Mitchell 

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SUNNY OUTLOOK FOR CLOUD? 

BY DAVID TYLER 

EDITOR 

This issue of Storage magazine includes some fascinating research findings from 

Veeam on the topic of data management, and more particularly the continuing growth 

in cloud data management as an area of interest for C-level executives. According to 

the survey results, almost three quarters of organisations admit to not being able to 

meet users' demands for uninterrupted access to data and services, and there is a 

suggestion that this could be costing a typical company US$20 million a year. This 

reflects the potentially devastating impact that downtime can have in terms of lost 

revenue, impacted productivity, and reduced customer confidence. However, the study 

also shows that organisations are acting to combat this, with nearly three-quarters 

(72%) looking to embrace Cloud Data Management, often by exploiting hybrid cloud 

capabilities, to ensure success and drive more value from their data. 

Indeed organisations are looking to embrace the power of technologies such as the 

cloud, hybrid cloud, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to 

drive business success. Almost half of respondents admit that data protection is 

imperative in successfully leveraging these investments. 

Alarmingly however, only 37% of those surveyed claim they are 'very confident' in their 

current backup solutions, with a significant majority (73%) stating that they cannot meet 

user demands. This inhibits the adoption of tools and processes that can drive business 

advantage, but leaders apparently are starting to recognise that work needs to be 

done; more than half of those surveyed are looking to deploy Intelligent Data 

Management and multi-cloud solutions across the business to address these failings. 

As Veeam's Ratmir Timashev comments on the findings in the article: "We are living in 

a data-driven age, and organisations need to wake up and take action to protect their 

data. Businesses must manage their data in a way that always delivers availability and 

leverage its value to drive performance. This is no longer a luxury, but a business 

necessity. There is a significant opportunity and competitive advantage for those who 

effectively manage their data. Ask yourself, are you confident that your business data 

will always be available? If you are unsure, it's time to act, and our study shows that 

many are not acting fast enough." 

Clearly it is more essential than ever that organisations get the right digital 

foundations in place to intelligently manage their data and safeguard their future. 

David Tyler 

david.tyler@btc.co.uk 

^ 

04 STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 


@STMagAndAwards 

www.storagemagazine.co.uk

STORAGE AWARDS 2019 AWARDS 2019 

TO THE VICTORS THE SPOILS 

ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY NIGHT WAS HAD BY ALL AT THIS YEAR'S STORAGE AWARDS - SEE BELOW 

FOR THE FULL LIST OF WINNERS 

The paracetamol packets are in the bin, 

the tuxedo dusted off and packed away 

ready for the next time, and the Storage 

magazine Twitter feed is only now 

beginning to recover from its most busy 

24 hours or so of the entire year. 

I refer of course to the Storage Awards 

2019 - if you weren't at the ceremony in 

June (and if not, why not?) then you 

missed possibly our biggest and best 

night ever - the next several pages 

include a full breakdown of all the 

deserving winners. 

Some of the biggest winners included 

IBM who walked away on the night with 

three awards, as well as HPE, Park Place 

Technologies, Infortrend and Pure 

Storage who all managed two. On the 

channel side Epaton won Specialist 

Storage Reseller for the fourth year in a 

row, while CMS Distribution were 

crowned Distributor of the Year. 

John Greenwood won the Channel 

Excellence award and Seagate were 

awarded the Channel Partner Programme 

of the Year trophy. Storage Product of the 

Year went to Infortrend for GSc and 

VEEAM were voted Storage Company of 

the Year for the second year running - 

they now join IBM as one of only two 

companies to retain that title. 

As ever, we would like to thank the 

many headline sponsors whose support 

helped make the evening the roaring 

success it always is: Barracuda, Boston, 

Cloudian, CMS, Epaton, Exertis 

Hammer, IBM, Spectra Logic, Titan Data 

Solutions and Veeam, as well as many 

other category sponsors too numerous to 

list here. 

Most of all of course our thanks go out 

to you the readers, whose nominations 

and votes are at the very core of the 

Storage Awards. We literally couldn't 

have done it without you. Last but by no 

means least, a massive 'well done' to all 

of our deserving winners - here's to next 

year! 

More info: www.storage-awards.com 

Storage Hall of Fame Inductee 

WINNER: HPe 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise was thrilled to be invited into the Hall of Fame at the latest Storage 

Awards. HPE strives to bring innovation and a great customer experience. This award gives us 

validation that we are continuing to achieve those goals. A second win on the night was a great 

surprise and we are delighted to be recognised as the best Hybrid Storage product of the year. 

Customers have so much choice in how they manage their data and the Hybrid option with 

inbuilt AI is an essential option for many who are exploring how to develop their infrastructure at 

a keen price point. Thanks to all who voted for HPE. 

^ 

06 STORAGE July/August 2019 


www.storagemagazine.co.uk 

MAGAZINE

STORAGE AWARDS STORAGE AWARDS 2019 

Innovation of the Year 

WINNER: Insurgo - KIT 

After claiming the "Ones to Watch" title at last year's Storries, we were thrilled to be awarded 

"Innovation of the Year" for our K.I.T. (Kills Information on Tape) tape media disposal solution. With 

7 years of development, enhancements, extensive testing and verification of our unique tape media 

disposal solution, we have spent the past year refining our Investigo tape-tracking portal while 

extending our capabilities to enable an onsite service offering that allows us an extensive global 

reach. Insurgo has a mission to increase awareness of the risks and environmental impacts of 

traditional tape disposal methods, to revolutionise tape media disposal worldwide. 

One to Watch - Company 

WINNER: Titan Data Solutions 

Titan Data Solutions are delighted to have won at this year's Storage Awards, under the category 

"One to Watch - Company". There were fourteen other well established contenders in this group, so 

for Titan to win after only eight months of trading makes us all extremely proud. Thank you to our 

fantastic customers and vendors alike, who have made our journey so far truly rewarding and 

exciting. Titan are the only specialist Data Storage and Cybersecurity Solutions Distributor in the UK 

today, with a strong vendor set and unparalleled technical expertise, we want to continue our rapid 

growth in the VAR community through 2019. 

Storage Event of the Year 

WINNER: Exertis Hammer - SF19 

We received so much positive feedback from delegates and vendors at SF19, Europe's leading 

enterprise-focused IT channel event, that we were on a bit of a high! But this award from the Storries 

for Storage Event of the Year capped what is clearly seen as a major conference, exhibition and 

networking opportunity. This pan-European event, held in Barcelona, has been running since 2007 

and brings together leading vendors and more than 200 senior decision-makers from resellers, 

managed service providers and system integrators. Awards such as this are recognition of the 

standing SF has in the world of IT. 

Storage Marketing Team of the Year 

WINNER: Ortial Technologies 

Ortial are delighted to win the Marketing of the Year award for the second year running. To be 

recognised for our efforts is very humbling and it just goes to show that hard work pays off. As a 

relatively new business, building a brand takes a great deal of focus and commitment from 

everyone involved. We have a fantastic team who work brilliantly to be the best that we can. The 

future looks very bright indeed. 

Contribution to the Storage Industry 

WINNER: Eric Herzog - IBM 

Eric Herzog (who sadly couldn’t join us on the night) is CMO and VP, Worldwide Storage Channels 

for IBM Storage. Eric's responsibilities include worldwide product marketing and management for 

IBM's award-winning family of storage solutions, software defined storage and converged 

infrastructure, as well as responsibility for global storage channels. Herzog has over 34 years of 

experience in the storage industry, managing all aspects of marketing, product management, sales, 

alliances, channels, and business development in both Fortune 500 and start-up storage companies 

and is frequently seen speaking at major storage and IT conferences across the globe. 


@STMagAndAwards July/August 2019 

^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

07


Channel Excellence Award 

WINNER: John Greenwood - Park Place Technologies 

It is extremely flattering to be recognised by the readers of Storage Magazine with the accolade of 

the 2019 Channel Excellence Award. Those that know me, know that I am a strong believer that 

there are a few attributes you need in life: Respect, Honesty, Integrity, Professionalism and Trust. I 

have learnt that solid business relationships with good people (who adopt the same 

aforementioned attributes) have been fundamental to what I do. I would like to thank those of 

you that fit the prior description (you know who you are) as without you, I wouldn't have received 

this award. 

Ransomware Protection Company of the Year 

WINNER: Barracuda Networks 

Barracuda's multi-layered defense protects your data (and your money). Detect ransomware and 

other advanced threats, using Barracuda multi-layer detection technologies including sandbox 

analysis. Prevent them from infecting your systems, using Barracuda's best-of-breed products to 

secure your network, email, web traffic, and outward-facing web applications. Recover quickly 

and easily in case attackers are successful, with Barracuda's robust backup solutions that leave 

attackers empty handed, while you get right back to business. 

Data Protection Company of the Year 

WINNER: Arcserve 

Mick Bradley, VP EMEA at Arcserve, commented: "We're delighted that Arcserve was named Data 

Protection Company of the Year at The Storage Awards. In the last year, we've launched solutions 

to help businesses adapt to increasingly complex IT ecosystems and go beyond traditional 

backup and restoration, so it's fantastic that our contribution and commitment to providing 

proven data protection solutions has been recognised. Also, it's even better that we've won due to 

public votes as this illustrates that our solutions are truly making a difference!" 

Enterprise Backup Hardware Product of the Year 

WINNER: Exagrid - Ex Series 

"ExaGrid's deduplication and its scale-out architecture provides customers with a consistent 

backup window regardless of data growth, especially important in today's ever-changing 

enterprise environments. The scale-out approach also eliminates forklift upgrades and forced 

product obsolescence. Our unique Landing Zone retains the most recent backup in its full 

undeduplicated form, enabling 3X faster backups as well as 20X faster restores and VM boots as 

compared to other deduplication solutions on the market. We provide lifetime value and 

investment protection that no other architecture can match." - Bill Andrews, President and CEO 

Storage Innovators of the Year 

WINNER: Boston 

Boston would like to thank Storage Magazine readers for their votes, and our commercial 

partners, who have contributed to us being recognised as "Storage Innovators of the Year". The 

award is recognition of our ongoing commitment to develop leading-edge storage solutions like 

Boston Flash-IO Talyn. The Talyn is a revolutionary leap forward in NVMe over Fabrics that solves 

one of the biggest challenges in computing today. Utilising Excelero's NVMesh architecture, Talyn 

extends the promise of SDS to low-latency workloads by leveraging server-side NVMe-based 

flash storage to deliver a scalable converged infrastructure for next level performance. 

^ 




MAGAZINE

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STORAGE AWARDS 2019 AWARDS 

Storage Monitoring & Reporting Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: Park Place Technologies 

Park Place Technologies take great pride in being nominated and shortlisted for the second year 

in a row at The Storage Awards. We are delighted to have won two awards on the night, for 

Channel Excellence and for Storage Monitoring and Reporting Vendor of the Year for our 

proactive, predictive automated maintenance product ParkView. These award wins are testament 

to the hard work of our people globally, who work tirelessly to ensure we can continue to service 

and provide support and maintenance for our customers and channel partners when they need it 

most, minimising downtime and maximising uptime. 

Object Storage Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: Spectra Logic 

Spectra Logic is honoured to win the 2019 Object Storage Vendor of the Year Award. BlackPearl 

is an object storage platform that enables data lifecycle management, eliminating the need for 

expensive legacy middleware. It consolidates islands of storage, creating efficient workflows. 

BlackPearl enables easy data management to online & nearline disk, tape, remote sites and 

public cloud. The platform includes BlackPearl Object Storage Disk, delivering long-term diskonly 

storage for the price of tape. Powered by Spectra's BlackPearl Converged Storage System, 

our BlackPearl Object Storage Disk scales in capacity and performance with a very low TCO. 

Hyperconvergence Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: Scale Computing 

Jeff Ready, CEO, Scale Computing: "It is a great accolade to be acknowledged as the leader in 

hyperconvergence solutions. This has been an exciting six months for the team, highlighted by the 

success of our recently launched HE500 series. Our ability to deliver HCI technology at a lower 

price point, and dramatically boost edge computing capabilities for all businesses, is creating a 

real buzz within the industry. We are dedicated to providing organisations with solutions that 

enable them to expand and grow their business in the data centre or at the edge. While we love 

receiving award recognition, nothing is more rewarding than helping our customers succeed." 

Hybrid Storage Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: HPe 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise was thrilled to be invited into the Hall of Fame at the latest Storage 

Awards. HPE strives to bring innovation and a great customer experience. This award gives us 

validation that we are continuing to achieve those goals. A second win on the night was a great 

surprise and we are delighted to be recognised as the best Hybrid Storage product of the year. 

Customers have so much choice in how they manage their data and the Hybrid option with 

inbuilt AI is an essential option for many who are exploring how to develop their infrastructure at 

a keen price point. Thanks to all who voted for HPE. 

Storage Hall of Fame inductee 

WINNER: IBM 

A storage industry leader for over 60 years, IBM Storage implements data-driven strategies for 

your enterprise to gain an edge in today's highly competitive world. Whether building a 

foundation for AI & Big Data initiatives, improving data mobility across hybrid multicloud 

environments, modernising data protection or delivering cyber resiliency initiatives, IBM storage 

provides unmatched speed, agility and efficiency into how your organisation delivers, manages 

and protects all types of data with its award-winning portfolio of all-flash storage systems and 

software-defined storage solutions. 

^ 




MAGAZINE

Winners of 

Innovation of the 

Year - Committed 

to improving the 

security of tape 

data disposal 

worldwide 

Tape is not dead, make sure your 

redundant data is… 

Despite the continued growth of cloud, tape is still at the 

forefront of data storage development. In order to safeguard 

your organisation from data breaches, you should ensure your 

tape disposal methods are too. 

Our extensive experience in the industry has highlighted the 

risks posed by traditional processes such as shredding, so we 

have invested heavily in research and development to create a 

revolutionary high-security disposal solution that we call K.I.T. 

This is proven to remove ALL traces of data from the full 

length of the tape whilst allowing it to be reused, providing 

ultimate security and improving your environmental impact. 

Shredding Degaussing Incineration 

K.I.T 

By Insurgo 

Erases the data 

from the tape 

0% chance of 

data recovery 

A tested & 

verified solution 

A fully 

traceable service 

Allows for tape 

reuse & recycling 

Environmentally 

friendly 

Contact the Tape Media Experts for more information 

or to arrange your FREE K.I.T demo 

+44 (0)1495 373 000 | experts@insurgomedia.com | www.insurgomedia.com


Hybrid Cloud Backup & DR Platform of the Year 

WINNER: Nexstor - NexProtect 

We know our NexProtect offering is unique, but it is such a thrill for our innovation to be 

recognised by the industry with this award. We provide dedicated hardware both on-site and at 

our data centre, which allows us to offer clients the speed and security they need to realise the 

true potential of their data while also keeping it safe from innumerable threats. Nexstor's first-class 

team is exceptionally dedicated to delivering the benefits of this new platform to our clients and 

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them. 

Flash/SSD Storage Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: Pure Storage 

Pure Storage, a data solutions leader, is delighted to have won both 'Flash/SSD Storage Vendor 

of the Year' and 'Storage Performance Optimisation Product of the Year' at the 2019 Storage 

Awards. A double win at the Storries is all the more powerful as it's voted by end users. Pure's 

customer-first philosophy is at the heart of everything it does and we will continue to focus on 

helping our customers leverage their most important asset, their data. 

Cloud Enabler of the Year 

WINNER: Infortrend 

Infortrend are delighted to have won not one, but two awards this year. It's a testament to not only 

our fastest growing product range, but also the work that has gone on behind the scenes to 

make sure its features & quality is known and recognised. Our Unified Cloud solution allows for 

moving and managing data between on premise and the Cloud with enterprise features and 

speeds. The seamless Cloud integration and "Always On" hardware solution is a fantastic fit in so 

many scenarios. We thank everybody who voted for us and for their continued support. 

Software-Defined Storage Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: IBM 

The IBM Spectrum Storage Family of software-defined storage solutions ensure your enterprise 

gets the most out of your oceans of data - be they file, block or object storage. Hybrid, 

multicloud enabled and open by design to work across multivendor infrastructures, the IBM 

Spectrum Storage Family of solutions delivers increased agility and flexibility through multiple 

deployment options including software-only, in the storage array or on the cloud. For 

organisations looking to take advantage of the additional value through the full set of integrated 

solutions, the family is available as the IBM Spectrum Storage suite. 

Storage Performance Optimisation Product of the Year 

WINNER: Pure Storage - FlashBlade 

Pure Storage, a data solutions leader, is delighted to have won both 'Flash/SSD Storage Vendor 

of the Year' and 'Storage Performance Optimisation Product of the Year' at the 2019 Storage 

Awards. A double win at the Storries is all the more powerful as it's voted by end users. Pure's 

customer-first philosophy is at the heart of everything it does and we will continue to focus on 

helping our customers leverage their most important asset, their data. 

^ 




MAGAZINE

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Capacity Storage Vendor 

WINNER: StorageCraft 

"We are thrilled and honoured to have won the Capacity Storage Vendor award from the Storries 

XVI! Many thanks to Storage Magazine for putting together a memorable evening: we had a 

great time! Our guests were delighted and very pleased to take part in this event, where 

StorageCraft OneXafe scale-out converged storage won a prestigious award! We are looking 

forward to next year's awards dinner." - Florian Malecki - International Product Marketing Sr. 

Director. 

Channel Partner Program of the Year 

WINNER: Seagate - Insider & Champions Programme 

We are honoured to win Storage Magazine's 'Channel Partner Program of the Year' award. The 

competition was fierce and we couldn't have won without the continued support of our 

customers, we must thank them for their votes and unwavering loyalty. Our continued success 

comes from working together with our partners to help their business thrive. We always 

endeavour to listen, taking on feedback in order to continuously develop and improve our 

Seagate Insider program. We couldn't do what we do without our partners and are grateful to all 

those who are part of the Seagate family. 

Storage Solution of the Year 

WINNER: DataCore - Evergreen Garden Care Ltd. 

Brett Denly of DataCore was on stage to collect the awards at the Storage Awards. He noted: 

"This was the category that we most wanted to win as it clearly exemplifies the power of 

DataCore's SANsymphony platform to offer fast infrastructure enablement, even in complex SAP 

HANA environments. This project entry detailed how Evergreen overcame huge challenges in 

terms of time, ingesting data sets and running critical apps without transaction interruption in their 

move away from US based parent company, Scotts Miracle Grow. We were delighted to have 

our Gold Partner and trusted advisor to the project, Waterstons, join us on stage." 

Editor's Choice - Product 

WINNER: Zerto - Virtual Replication for VMware vSphere 

Zerto is proud to have been voted as Editor's choice at the Storage Awards 2019. Zerto CEO Ziv 

Kedem commented: "We believe so strongly in our product, and how it benefits our customers, 

but it's always nice to see that passion validated by distinguished awards programs such as these. 

We were up against some of the biggest names in the technology industry, and being awarded 

the Editor's choice demonstrates that our platform is truly providing the IT resilience that 

organisations need in today's cloud-based, risk-focused environment." 

Editor's Choice - Company 

WINNER: Unitrends 

Unitrends, a Kaseya company, delivers award-winning business recovery solutions for any IT 

environment. Unitrends increases uptime, productivity and confidence in a world in which IT 

professionals must do more with less. Unitrends leverages high-availability hardware and 

software engineering, cloud economics, enterprise power with consumer-grade design, and 

customer-obsessed support to natively provide all-in-one enterprise backup and continuity. The 

result is a "one throat to choke" set of offerings that allow customers to focus on their business 

rather than backup and security. Learn more by visiting www.unitrends.com. 

^ 




MAGAZINE


Recognition for Service Excellence in Storage 

WINNER: UltraSupport 

UltraSupport were delighted to pick up a gong at the Storage Awards. Our third party 

maintenance division has expanded significantly over the last two years and in the context of 

beefing up our triage & field engineering force we've always kept the importance of service 

delivery as our number one priority. To be able to expand and still maintain such a high standard 

of service excellence is testament to the hard-work and dedication shown by our Logistics, 

Service-desk and Engineering staff. We'd like to say a huge thanks to them all. 

Third Party Maintenance Company of the Year 

WINNER: Curvature 

The Third-Party Maintenance Company of the Year award means a great deal to Curvature, 

particularly as it's voted on by our own customers. The trust that they have placed in us, and the 

confidence they feel in Curvature delivering the best possible services, gives a strong independent 

endorsement and verification as to the ongoing value we quietly and consistently deliver to 

market. Third-Party Maintenance is no longer an optional strategy, but a best practice leveraged 

by many of the largest companies in the world. Taking the voting lead in a very strong, very full 

category, validates the TPM alternative proposition that OEMs have long tried to suppress. 

Security Storage Reseller of the Year 

WINNER: MTI 

It's the first time MTI has won the prestigious UK Security Storage Reseller of the Year award, 

illustrating the huge strides the company is making in the industry. The recognition reflects the 

high quality of service capability in MTI's pre-sales, delivery and support teams, and verifies 

that MTI is independently viewed as the safest pair of hands in the industry for managing 

customers' data and infrastructure. MTI prides itself for keeping its customers secure and safe, 

and it's a fantastic achievement for the company to gain acknowledgement of its security 

storage capabilities. 

Specialist Storage Reseller of the Year 

WINNER: Epaton 

Epaton is the reintroduction of a fundamental missing component in the IT market place; a 

vendor independent specialist in Next Generation Storage, Backup & Hyper-Converged 

Infrastructure Solution. As one of the industry's few independent providers, Epaton is supported by 

an experienced, passionate and dedicated team who believe in driving value and leveraging 

disruptive technologies to the customers advantage. To have won the Specialist Storage Reseller 

of the Year award for the fourth consecutive year is a huge achievement, and really reinforces the 

team's continuing efforts to provide the best possible service to our customers. For more 

Corporate Storage Reseller of the Year 

WINNER: Q Associates 

Directors Andrew Griffiths and Andrew Rigby were delighted to receive this award. "The Storage 

Awards represent huge recognition for the work we do, storing, managing and protecting data 

for over 450 customers across the UK," said Griffiths, "Since the awards are voted for by end-user 

customers and industry peers, they hold pride of place in our trophy cabinet." Rigby added "We 

are thrilled to receive the Corporate Storage Reseller of the Year 2019 award and would like to 

thank all of our customers and peers who voted for us along with the organisers for a very 

enjoyable evening". 

^ 




MAGAZINE

STORAGE AWARDS STORAGE AWARDS 2019 

Storage Distributor of the Year 

WINNER: CMS Distribution 

"We're delighted to have been recognised as the Storage Distributor of the Year at this year's awards. 

We are very thankful to our customer and vendor partners for this recognition of our service to them 

as well as their ongoing support." Frank Salmon, founder and CEO of CMS Distribution. 

Cloud Product of the Year 

WINNER: Altaro - VM Backup Cloud Management Console 

The Altaro team is delighted to have won this year's Storage Award for Cloud Product of the Year. 

Altaro develops backup solutions for MSPs, IT resellers and IT departments, providing enterpriseclass 

functionality while avoiding unnecessary features that add cost and undue complexity. With 

50,000+ customers worldwide, 10,000 partners globally and 2,000+ MSPs to date, its flagship 

solution is Altaro VM Backup, for Hyper-V and VMware backup and replication. Altaro also 

provides an annual subscription solution to back up and restore Office 365 mailboxes, Altaro 

Office 365 Backup. Both are also available as monthly subscription programs for MSPs. 

Storage Product of the Year 

WINNER: Infortrend - GSc 

Infortrend are delighted to have won not one, but two awards this year. Taking home Cloud 

Enabler of the Year and the big one, Storage Product of the Year for our EonStor GSc. It's a 

testament to not only our fastest growing product range, but also the work that has gone on 

behind the scenes to make sure its features & quality is known and recognised. Our Unified 

Cloud solution allows for moving and managing data between on premise and the Cloud 

with enterprise features and speeds.We thank everybody who voted for us and for their 

continued support. 

Cloud Company of the Year 

WINNER: Cloudian 

"We're thrilled that Cloudian has been named Cloud Company of the Year at this year's Storage 

Awards, which is a testament to the excellent work that our team has put into making Cloudian 

the most widely deployed independent provider of object storage systems. The award recognises 

our continued leadership in delivering limitlessly scalable, highly cost-effective storage solutions 

for managing and protecting massive volumes of data on-premise or in public cloud and hybrid 

cloud environments - helping customers around the world grow their businesses." Iris 

Hatzenbichler, Marketing Director EMEA at Cloudian 

Storage Company of the Year 

WINNER: Veeam 

Veeam is proud to have been recognised as 'Storage Company of the Year' for the second year 

running, particularly as it was voted for by the readers of Storage Magazine. As a 100% channel 

business, our ecosystem is critical. We are focused on delivering choice, flexibility and value to 

our customers and our recent "with Veeam" programme is a testament to this. Winning this award 

confirms that we have the right strategy in place and are empowering our partners and customers 

to do more with their data, providing new ways for organisations to generate value from their 

data, while accelerating our leadership in Cloud Data Management. 


@STMagAndAwards July/August 2019 

^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

17

CHANNEL FOCUS: SEAGATEFOCUS: SEAGATE 

CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE 

SARA LISAMORE, SENIOR EMEA PROGRAM MANAGER AT 

SEAGATE, EXPLAINS THE THINKING BEHIND THE COMPANY'S 

SEAGATE INSIDER PROGRAM, WHICH WON THE CHANNEL 

PARTNER PROGRAM OF THE YEAR CATEGORY AT THIS YEAR'S 

STORAGE AWARDS 

Within the B2B tech landscape, 

partner portals and programs are 

as common as TLA's - three letter 

acronyms. Making an environment that is 

truly helpful to a customer, one that engages 

and facilitates in the growth of their 

business, is less common. That's why 

receiving recognition from Storage 

magazine by winning Channel Partner 

Program of the Year 2019 at the Storage 

Awards XVI, made it all worthwhile. 

When building the program, we really 

listened to the wants and needs of our 

channel partners. Our distributors, resellers 

and system integrators and builders can 

now receive exclusive access to online tools 

and services through Seagate Insider. We 

actively want to help their business thrive, 

helping them to maximise their sales and 

see profits grow. 

Whether they're already entrenched in the 

Seagate product portfolio, or just beginning 

to explore what we can offer, our Seagate 

Insider program helps multiply their wins 

and grow their business by receiving direct 

support, lead generation and sales training 

collateral - all designed with their distribution 

needs in mind. 

IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU 

Our mantra is very much 'it's not about us, it's 

about you'. With the portal, we don't want to 

build a one-sided conversation and 

experience. By listening to our partners' 

feedback and understanding their needs, our 

goal is to help grow trust within their 

customer base. We want to show that by 

partnering with Seagate, we are committed 

to providing all of the information they need 

to champion their brand. 

We are proud that our Seagate Insider 




MAGAZINE

CHANNEL FOCUS: CHANNEL FOCUS: SEAGATE 

"Our mantra is very much 'it's not about us, it's about you'. With the portal, we don't 

want to build a one-sided conversation and experience. By listening to our partners' 

feedback and understanding their needs, our goal is to help grow trust within their 

customer base. We want to show that by partnering with Seagate, we are committed 

to providing all of the information they need to champion their brand." 

network serves as a knowledge-hub for our 

partners. Access to our case studies and 

white papers hopefully illustrate how 

Seagate is not a product focused brand - 

instead we are part of the solution, solving 

real-life problems - bringing our software 

firmly out of the abstract datasphere and 

into the practical. Of course, for those who 

want to deep dive into product specific 

details - from overview and specs, to 

firmware and software features - then that's 

all available too. 

Technology is a rapidly evolving landscape, 

and storage is certainly no different. 

Education is key to ensure our members stay 

ahead of the competition, so we produce 

tailored courses, offered in sessions, 

complete with an ending exam, to earn 

certifications and help prove your credentials 

to your customers and clients. 

We're proud of our extensive and wideranging 

webinar and training series, all 

housed within Seagate Insider. We produce 

video-based webinar series on more than just 

products; our members can learn about 

Edge computing, data security, futureproofing 

businesses, and so much more. 

We know that our distributors value having 

a community of like-minded individuals; as 

such, we have created forums and 

community-led feeds, where Seagate Insiders 

can join the conversation with other Seagate 

and storage enthusiasts, sharing thoughts, 

questions and feedback. The portal is also 

how we communicate - and we take our own 

continued learning seriously. Through polls 

and questions hosted on the site, our 

members have the opportunity to let us 

know what does, and doesn't work for them. 

Our partners have the opportunity to share 

their feedback and help us improve the 

experience on offer, and shape the future of 

the Seagate product portfolio and solutions. 

We want and need to listen to stay ahead of 

the curve too. 

By becoming a partner, Seagate Insiders 

receive access to a highly usable, intuitive - 

and now award-winning - platform. Browse 

Seagate products, see new releases, 

newsletters, industry news and events, and 

downloadable marketing collateral and data 

sheets. Being part of the Seagate family 

means we support you every step of the way 

to help you grow. 

SURVEILLANCE IN FOCUS 

For those with a surveillance focus 

preference, we have recently launched our 

new function of the Seagate Insider 

program, bringing all surveillance content 

front and centre. Here, you can find 

everything you need in one easy to find 

place, offering our members the chance to 

master their surveillance storage sales pitch 

with proven tips and tricks, product 

presentations and industry intelligence, with 

content specific to surveillance. 

Selling the market leading product for 

surveillance means you offer your customers 

smart solutions to today's growing data 

requirements. The surveillance portal 

showcases the best of our SkyHawk storage 

solutions range, and demonstrates the wide 

range of applications the product has at the 

coal-face of industry. 

We know that our partners need vital 

information in order to offer the best 

possible product match to their customers. 

It's never been more important to sell your 

customers the right drive for the job. As 

such, we've developed an invaluable 

compatibility and storage calculator. Hosted 

on the Surveillance portal, our members 

can instantly calculate storage requirements 

and check system compatibility with 

Seagate surveillance-optimised drives - 

saving our distributors and Seagate Insiders 

valuable time. 

We offer valuable partner highlights to see 

how similar industries have used Seagate 

surveillance solutions - including case 

studies from Hikvision to British Airways - to 

best offer the right solution for your client's 

application, regardless of industry. 

GET WITH THE PROGRAM 

We're proud to now be the award-winning 

Seagate Insider for partners. This 

recognition is the result of a lot of hard 

work, but building it was just the start. Just 

as our industry constantly innovates and 

evolves, so will our program. We urge you 

all to come see for yourselves - be part of 

the conversation. Help us change the 

storage solution landscape, one sure-footed 

step at a time. 

More info: www.seagate.com 




STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

19

CASE STUDY: 

CASE STUDY: IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON 

CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE 

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON IS PROTECTING VITAL RESEARCH DATA WITH A NEW SDS 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

ArcaStream and Excelero solutions are 

part of a new software-defined 

storage deployment at Imperial 

College London, one of the world's leading 

university research centres for science, 

engineering, medicine and business. By 

moving to a single high-performance 

storage infrastructure that integrates legacy 

and new resources, Imperial College 

London reduced storage complexity, 

increased agility in managing capacity and 

performance, and gained significant ROI. 

The university has also improved usability, 

enacted a simpler and more cost-effective 

charge-back policy, and embraced a futureproof 

approach to staying ahead of the 

continual multi-petabyte per year growth of 

its data holdings. 

Expansion in Imperial College London's 

Research Computing Services over the past 

decade had resulted in over 30 separate 

and independently managed islands of 

storage - silos that were difficult to access, 

manage and use. The group needed to 

enable researchers to access data with ease 

and speed, so they remain solely focused 

on their research projects - while integrating 

legacy and future compute systems and 

managing data throughout its life-cycle in 

line with stringent regulatory compliance 

guidelines. 

The new Research Data Store (RDS) is built 

around ArcaStream PixStor, a highperformance 

scalable storage platform 

based on IBM Spectrum Scale parallel file 

system, which combines flash, disk, tape, 

and cloud storage into a single global 

namespace. The infrastructure is 

geographically dispersed with a 5PB storage 

repository at a primary site and a secondary 

Photo credit: Stewart Oak, Imperial College London 

site for disaster recovery, served by PixStor 

with asynchronous replication and 

intelligent tiering to external storage targets. 

RDS also includes Excelero's NVMesh, 

software that enables the sharing of NVMe 

flash storage resources across any network 

and supports any local or distributed file 

system. NVMesh provides a scalable NVMe 

tier for extreme metadata performance. 

Users benefit from the performance of local 

flash with the convenience of centralised 

storage while reducing the overall storage 

total cost of ownership. 

With this new robust infrastructure, 

Imperial College London's RDS now 

simultaneously serves 2,000 existing HPC 

nodes and over 3,000 users seamlessly, 

with 20GB/s of throughput with no loss of 

interactive user performance. 

"The usability of the systems for interactive 

use in particular has improved significantly," 

explains Matthew Harvey, RDS project lead 

and RCS Manager at Imperial College. 

"Previously, there were frequent interruptions 

to interactive use because the file system 

load for some compute jobs effectively 

squeezed out users. Users would log into 

the system, type in their search criteria but it 

could take more than 10 seconds to 

respond. Now that is a thing of the past." 

The new RDS supports a charge-back 

strategy where researchers cost-out storage 

as services on their grants - instead of 

charging users based on reserve capacity. 

More effective management of storage 

capacity has also allowed the College to 

avoid costly additions. The ArcaStream 

platform provides tools and insight needed 

to understand the access patterns of data 

on the file system for each project 

allocation. "This information governance is 

enabling us to store valuable data more 

intelligently and economically," concluded 

Matthew Harvey. 

More info: www.excelero.com 

^ 

20 STORAGE July/August 2019 @STMagAndAwards 


MAGAZINE

THANK YOU FOR VOTING 

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WEB: WWW.BOSTON.CO.UK 

EMAIL: SALES@BOSTON.CO.UK 

PHONE: +44 (0) 1727 876 100

CHANNEL FOCUS: TITAN DATA FOCUS: 

SOLUTIONS 

BRIDGING THE GAP 

JOSEPH O'HALLORAN OF TITAN DATA SOLUTIONS EXPLAINS WHY DISTRIBUTORS NEED TO 'ADD 

MORE VALUE THAN JUST A PRICE POINT' IF THEY WANT TO COMPETE IN TODAY'S SHIFTING 

MARKETPLACE 

Making predictions is generally a risky 

business. In the world of IT, making 

predictions as to what will be the 

future successful technologies may not be just 

risky but could also lead to costly mistakes, 

for those using and selling those technologies 

alike. So how do you back a winner? A good 

place to start is by looking at those who 

understand the real risks and opportunities 

ahead - and who aren't afraid to tell it as it is. 

Predictions may be perilous but there are 

actually some certainties: every company is 

going to have to cope with increasingly huge 

amounts of data and even more complex 

problems in order to meet new agility and 

flexibility demands. An urgent issue for firms 

will be dealing with this complexity not only 

effectively but most importantly securely. That's 

an opportunity that can be realised by 

working with Titan Data Solutions. 

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE 

Titan Data Solutions is the only truly dedicated 

data storage and cybersecurity solutions 

distributor in the UK today. We have decades' 

worth of combined experience working in the 

VAR channel, born from an understanding of 

what resellers and vendors require from a 

distributor. We pride ourselves on our expert 

technical ability, and aim to bridge the gap 

between vendors, resellers and end users, by 

offering bespoke solutions and efficient 

account management. 

services. From pre-sales consultancy to system 

design and configuration; all of our hardware 

solutions are fully built and tested in-house 

prior to dispatch and sold with onsite 

maintenance support warranty for customer 

peace of mind. For tape media we have trioptic 

labelling and LTO7 M8 formatting inhouse, 

alongside data migration, data 

vaulting and data destruction services. 

THE RIGHT PORTFOLIO 

We have a concise technology portfolio, 

supported by margin-rich and market-leading 

vendors, imitating dataflow through the types 

of end organisation that you will be working 

with, structured according to the 3-2-1-1 rule. 

That is three copies of data: primary, 

secondary/backup and archiving; two types of 

media - hard disk and tape; one copy online; 

one copy onsite. 

Our most unique proposition to the channel 

is the recent launch of the Titan Cybersecurity 

Competency Centre, a new concept in 

distribution offering 24/7 endpoint detection 

and response (EDR), with threat monitoring 

and incident response. With Titan's security 

operations centre (SOC) services, we can 

offer affordable packaged monitoring services 

and encryption, through the channel, 

We are a specialist distributor, one that is 

acutely aligned with data storage and 

cybersecurity as part of a niche vendor set 

that enables us to cater for all reseller 

requirements in these areas. To complement 

our storage and cybersecurity product 

portfolio, Titan offers a range of marginboosting 

reseller focused professional 




MAGAZINE

CHANNEL FOCUS: TITAN FOCUS: 

DATA SOLUTIONS 

delivering enterprise level security services 

directly to the end user. 

Titan's vision for endpoint security, in 

partnership with ESET, is to focus on security 

strategies that combine ESET's leading threat 

detection and response platform with 

independently-sourced and competitive SOC 

services, integrated at the distributor level. 

This offers a completely new form of added 

value not for just our reseller partners but also 

end-users. In short, it offers a new concept in 

distribution on how to manage the cost of 

SOC services. 

The goal, in pursuing this vision, is to help 

take the endpoint security of many small and 

mid-sized companies, with up to 6,000 

users, to the level that is now required not 

only by legislation such as GDPR, but also by 

the increasingly dangerous and targeted 

threat environment. 

Titan believes that the key is to take the 

hard work out of sourcing SOC services and 

to address the issues that end users face 

regarding EDR in this increasingly complex 

environment. A lot of end users are going to 

find that acting effectively in the world of EDR 

is not simple. Do they have the right technical 

expertise available at the right time, to make 

the right decision based on an EDR alert? Do 

they have the courage to take responsibility 

for making the necessary decisions within a 

suitable work process framework? This could 

all be a challenge that is one step too far to 

solve in-house. That's a great opportunity for 

the channel and its one which Titan will work 

with you to realise. 

SIZE ISN'T EVERYTHING 

What's new about this? Well we believe that 

distribution is losing relevance in the 

channel, with established distributors 

becoming apathetic toward their reseller 

community, phone-shy and comfortable 

selling electronically, while migrating their 

enterprise and security business, that typically 

has a longer sales cycle, to a more 

transactional model. This proves that size is 

not everything. In contrast, by working with 

us you will be working with what we believe 

is the only truly dedicated data storage and 

cybersecurity solutions distributor active in 

the UK today. 

And what kind of marketplace are we all 

working in now? We all know that over the 

last few years there have been a tremendous 

number of mergers and acquisitions within 

the vendor community and these moves are 

now having a real effect upon the channel. 

Moreover, given that there have been so 

many acquisitions across distribution, a lot of 

core propositions no longer resonate and as 

manufacturers' targets get larger, in a lot of 

cases the message has been lost as to what 

the end customer actually needs. In addition, 

these end customers are now leading their 

orders with specifications rather than a 

vendor name on a box. Just how much value 

can you add if you are being asked to 

transact by just being given a part number? 

A DIFFERENT APPROACH 

We don't run away from dealing with the 

increased demands and complexity of 

today's end user organisations: we actively 

head towards them. Moreover, we crave the 

channel's problems when it comes to vanilla 

opportunities in data storage and 

cybersecurity. We're not a box shifter! Our 

business development team will visit all sales 

floors, sharing technical advice, running 

training days and events, focused around 

upselling technology, rather than simply 

selling part codes, making resellers more 

relevant to their end users who are being 

chased by the masses trying to sell the same 

low margin vendor sets. 

We know that for reseller organisations 

distributors need to add more value than 

just a price point. We need to be more 

technical and need to take the pain away 

and basically help resellers and their 

customers get on with that most important 

thing: the job in hand. 

Our team's experience in selling enterprise 

and cybersecurity solutions means that you 

have expertise on hand to satisfy any need 

your customers have and give them, and 

you, peace of mind. Our aim is simply to 

listen to end users and see what is important 

and respond quickly, specific to their 

technical and commercial needs. 

And ultimately, it's always going to be 

about what's best for the end user. It's not 

just about margin; it's all about providing a 

richer service and greater value to the end 

customer. The better informed end users are, 

the better chance you'll have of keeping 

them up to speed with technology 

developments and keeping their business. 

When it comes to storage and 

cybersecurity, and addressing the increased 

demands being placed on your customers' 

business, Titan Data Solutions has all of the 

tools, expertise and capability you will need 

to close the deal and keep business. 

More info: www.titandatasolutions.com 




STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

23

INTERVIEW: VERBATIM VERBATIM 

READY FOR THE NEXT STEP 

THIS YEAR ISN'T JUST THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MOON 

LANDINGS - IT ALSO SEES 50 YEARS OF VERBATIM. STORAGE 

MAGAZINE EDITOR DAVID TYLER SPEAKS WITH THE 

COMPANY'S PRESIDENT, CLIVE ALBERTS 

Dave Tyler: This is an interesting time to 

catch up with Verbatim, as on the one 

hand you are in your 50th year as a 

business, and also the company has only very 

recently changed ownership. Tell us how 

Verbatim came to be where it is today. 

Clive Alberts: Verbatim is a true storage 

company - that is our heritage. The business 

started in a garage in 1969 manufacturing 

data cassettes, then of course the infamous 

floppy disk, a product in which we were the 

market leader for many decades, all over the 

world. It has been a key ongoing strategy 

within Verbatim throughout those fifty years, 

in order to secure our future, to always 

be open to new business 

environments. So this has 

meant adding new product 

categories, but also adding 

new business units that 

might perhaps seem 

unconnected to storage - 

from lighting to 3D 

printing. This reflects 

Verbatim's flexibility as a 

business: we are always 

prepared for change. 

The idea of change has 

played an important part 

in our history: we've 

changed ownership at 

various times, of course, 

including to Eastman 

Kodak in the 80s. As part 

of Mitsubishi Chemical 

since 1990 we have 

established ourselves as 

the genuine success story 

of optical media. That 

relationship positioned Verbatim ideally to 

produce the very highest quality premium 

optical discs, clearly distinguishing our 

product from the many others on the market. 

There has now been a further change 

announced which we see as a continuation 

of our success story: Verbatim has been 

acquired by our biggest supplier, CMC 

Magnetics Corporation, the number one 

producer of optical media discs. This will 

allow us to - in what is something of a 

declining market overall - take on huge 

market share. Integration with CMC will also 

allow us to address new segments that we 

weren't previously able to cover with the 

Verbatim brand alone, so we see lots of new 

opportunities in waiting for us from now on. 

DT: How will the latest change of 

ownership affect the product strategy of the 

company? What will happen to the Freecom 

brand, for example? 

CA: We see this latest announcement as an 

opportunity to invest in and grow new 

businesses - one of particular interest to us is 

the Internet of Things. We're looking at 

smart home security for example as an area 

we intend to build on over the next few 

months. It is an exciting time for us, we feel 

that at Verbatim we are always prepared for 

what's coming next, and we are always 

ready for change. 

CMC Magnetics has had a very strong 

relationship with Mitsubishi Chemical over 

the last 30 or 40 years, and this will continue. 

CMC also has a number of relevant IPs, and 

very high technical expertise in the production 

of optical media discs. So we will actually be 




MAGAZINE

INTERVIEW: INTERVIEW: VERBATIM 

"There is high demand, especially from corporate customers as you'd expect, but also 

from individual consumers on the lookout for easy to use, but secure, systems to 

protect their data. Users at all levels are demanding solutions - particularly mobile - 

which are easy to use, don't require entering a password into a software application, 

but do not compromise on the security aspects." 

gaining significant additional knowledge that 

will help us to improve the standing of the 

Verbatim brand in the optical media market - 

a standing that is, in any case, already very 

high as we are the clear market leader; so we 

can only get better. It is a true win-win 

situation both for Verbatim as a brand and for 

CMC as a manufacturer. 

We will continue with Freecom - at the end 

of the day we will have several different 

brands within the organisation, as we further 

define the market segments and position our 

brands accordingly. Freecom is perceived as 

a premium-oriented brand in the market, and 

we would definitely be looking to continue to 

bring more such premium products to 

market. These would mainly be external 

storage devices, hard drives of course but 

also external SSDs - we've recognised that the 

market for external SSD products is growing, 

so it makes sense for the Freecom brand to 

focus more and more on SSD solutions. 

DT: You mentioned security as part of a 

planned IoT development - how important is 

security to storage vendors right now? 

CA: We can of course offer the storage 

aspect of a smart home solution, whether that 

is based on memory cards or also external 

hard drives, but in the smart home security 

market we are actually talking about 

supplying a complete solution. This means 

not just the hardware but also the software 

that works with it. So, surveillance, different 

types of sensors, everything within that 

environment that allows you to link and 

communicate with each other - all steered via 

a single app, which is very important. This is 

a key point for the convenience of the user. 

We've been working toward this for some 

time. It is clear that the whole topic of security 

aligns very well with the Verbatim brand - our 

users already recognise us as a serious and 

trustworthy brand. This is proving useful to us 

in our IoT developments of course, but we 

are also now looking at other areas within 

our storage portfolio where we might exploit 

this security awareness. We're bringing out a 

couple of new security-related storage 

products, such as the fingerprint-protected 

USB drive announced recently, as well as a 

fingerprint-protected hard drive. We plan to 

have a range of offerings that fit into an 

overall family of security-oriented products. 

All businesses are facing higher 

requirements in terms of security and 

compliance - GDPR of course has been a 

significant driver in this category over the last 

year. There is high demand, especially from 

corporate customers as you'd expect, but also 

from individual consumers who are 

increasingly on the lookout for easy to use, 

but secure, systems to protect their data. 

Users at all levels are demanding solutions - 

particularly mobile - which are easy to use, 

don't require entering a password into a 

software application, but do not compromise 

on the security aspects. For this reason we are 

focusing more on hardware-related 

encryption solutions. 

DT: How do you see the broader outlook 

for the storage sector itself, and how 

Verbatim fits in with that view? 

CA: There are a lot of changes happening 

across the industry, as user demand itself 

changes. Data is being created everywhere, 

content is available everywhere thanks to the 

cloud, so we have to be ready for that in our 

product planning, whether that is our external 

drives or optical media. At the end of the day 

users need both local storage and cloud - but 

there's nothing to say that Verbatim might not 

offer some kind of cloud capacity as well as 

local storage in a future offering. As we 

touched on earlier when discussing the smart 

home security project, we have to recognise 

cloud as being a key part of any 

comprehensive solution. 

At the same time there is a very strong 

install base of users who are very focused on 

keeping their data local and keeping it with 

them at all times, and protected. The change 

of ownership is empowering us to look at 

expanding into some new markets as well as 

growing share in our established markets. 

We see a definite move away from external 

hard drives toward SSD, for instance, in the 

consumer market, so we expect to grow that 

part of our business. This is partly as prices 

become more comparable, but also 

because of the more attractive specifications 

of SSDs in terms of speed of data access, 

mobility etc. Our internal SSD offerings have 

already been doing very well for a while, so 

it is a logical step for us to expand our share 

of the external market as well. This will 

definitely be a growth category for Verbatim 

going forward. 

More info: www.verbatim.com 




STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

25

TECHNOLOGY: DATA CENTRES 

PLANNING FOR THE AGILE DATA CENTRE 

BIG DATA, ANALYTICS AND MACHINE LEARNING, IOT APPLICATIONS, ON-DEMAND APPROACHES, 

SECURITY AND BACKUP CRITERIA - STORAGE REQUIREMENTS ARE SEEMINGLY CONTINUOUSLY 

EXPANDING. HOWEVER, MODERN STORAGE SOLUTIONS DO NOT HAVE TO BE SO COMPLEX, 

EXPLAINS RAINER KAESE, SENIOR MANAGER BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT HDD, TOSHIBA 

ELECTRONICS EUROPE 

The demands of business models and, 

ultimately, the digital lifestyle of modern 

society are based on data. This is 

reflected very clearly in data centres, going 

largely unnoticed by the average consumer. 

Whether for autonomous driving, image 

galleries with facial recognition, video 

surveillance, secure financial solutions or 

millions of apps and applications, both man 

and machine are producing or processing 

more and more data. 

This quickly leads to the impression that all 

data must be available at all times, in real time 

and retained for an indefinite time period. 

However, this is not necessarily the case. The 

vast majority of data centre requirements are 

easy to list and describe - the outcome is clear 

requirements that enable a structured 

approach for the configuration of an 

appropriate and future-proof data centre 

storage solution. 

STORAGE APPLICATIONS 

In the past, storage areas were divided into 

offline, nearline and online, often denoting 

backup and tape solutions, high-capacity hard 

drives, and the fastest existing storage drive 

options. Today, a hard drive or technologytype 

approach is no longer effective, since 

data centres demand a broader view of 

storage solutions. Cloud systems make 

planning storage in terms of hard drives and 

gigabytes irrelevant. 

Instead the challenges are approached in 

terms of systems, arrays, racks, or similar units 

of measurement that push our traditional 

measures of performance and capacity into 

the background. 

For example, if a company introduces a new 

service, including apps and multiple interfaces, 

the requirements can be immense. Whether it's 

Netflix, the Trainline app or even an entire 

digital platform such Facebook, aspects such 

as data types, storage capacities, access 

formats, availability, ability to archive, and 

scalability must be weighed up. It becomes 

clear that you cannot meet any requirement of 

a data solution "solely" with hard drives, SSDs, 

or general concepts from the past. In other 

words, for every storage requirement there is a 

matching solution. 

CAPACITY VS PERFORMANCE 

At first glance, the breakdown of these 

requirements seems tangible enough. In 

particular, the comparison of SSDs and hard 

drives seems to depend on the use case, since 

SSDs are generally fast and efficient while hard 

drives can store much more data at a lower 

cost. However, as soon as we zoom out to the 

array level, or even look at entire clusters in a 

data centre, this no longer holds true. 

In large deployments it is typically the case 

that several differing technologies are generally 

suitable to achieve the same goal. Based on a 

business's application requirements and 

specific storage approach, a specific 

performance can be achieved by a defined 

quantity of SSDs or systems, but equally well by 

a likely larger quantity of hard drives. The 

ultimate selection of one over the other 

depends a lot on what the other requirements 




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TECHNOLOGY: DATA CENTRES 

"Hard drives will continue to be the backbone of many 

storage solutions. There are significant price 

advantages when using high capacity hard drive 

storage where maximum performance is not required. 

In addition, decades of experience working with this 

technology, the ability to plan long-term, along with 

the availability of upgrade solutions for existing 

implementations, ensure that hard drives have a role 

to play in storage solutions for years to come." 

are in order that a sensible and economical 

decision can be made. 

For the same as the costly acquisition of a 

small number of high-performance SSD 

systems, a larger number of hybrid systems 

based on a combination of SSDs and hard 

drives, or even a pure hard drive-based 

system, could all achieve the goals set. The 

total cost of ownership (TCO) as well as 

running costs, failure rates and power 

requirements also have to be taken into 

account here - a decision made on instinct 

alone seldom makes sense in these cases. 

AGILE PLANNING METHODS 

Even small changes to the planned 

configuration, such as drive availability, unit 

price changes and similar, will most likely result 

in a different outcome to the defined most 

economical and rational approach. A 

comparison with project management 

methods becomes sensible here - when 

requirements or scope change rapidly, a rigid 

planning and inflexible implementation 

process make little sense. Instead, an agile 

approach with frequent reviews and the 

inclusion of many perspectives, skill sets, and 

the participation of interdisciplinary teams 

become important. 

The same applies when planning storage 

solutions. Do not persist with rigid approaches 

based upon beliefs. Individual requirements 

call for individual solutions and the solution 

does not have to be a categorical decision for 

a single technology. Agile planning makes 

even more sense for storage solutions in data 

centres where diverse requirements are often 

combined. 

HDD AS A BACKBONE 

Hard drives will continue to be the backbone of 

many storage solutions. There are significant 

price advantages when using high capacity 

hard drive storage where maximum 

performance is not required. In addition, 

decades of experience working with this 

technology, the ability to plan long-term, along 

with the availability of upgrade solutions for 

existing implementations, ensure that hard 

drives have a role to play in storage solutions 

for years to come. 

DRIVE OPTIONS 

For real-time applications, SSDs are 

undoubtedly the right choice. However, in all 

other cases it is not possible to declare a 

general approach. Modern hard drives, such as 

Toshiba's MG series for enterprise environments, 

remain ideal for a wide variety of use cases in 

many situations since, as the number of drives 

in a system, or even the number of systems, 

grows, the criteria and metrics vary and change. 

The use of hard drives often quickly become a 

potential option again. 

The 7,200 rpm SAS or SATA-equipped MG 

Series offer a wide range of capacities from 

1TB (MG04) up to 16TB (MG08). The MG07 

and MG08 models are based on both proven 

design and technology, are helium-filled and 

come with a five-year warranty and a target 

data volume of up to 550TB/year. 

These models are classed as nearline drives, 

i.e. they are suitable for storing all data that 

does not need to be permanently edited and 

accessed. In practice, this is the case for the 

majority of data. This is tangible in the case of 

"social media" applications: profile information 

is usually accessed for a short period of time, 

after which it is archived again in long-term 

storage while remaining quickly accessible. 

Only hard drives such as the MG07 or 

MG08 are, thanks to their internal sensors and 

high level of data integrity, capable of handling 

today's rapidly growing data volumes reliably, 

quickly and economically. 

More info: www.toshiba-storage.com 




MAGAZINE

INTERVIEW: PANASAS PANASAS 

CHANGE MANAGEMENT 

FAYE PAIRMAN, CEO AND PRESIDENT, PANASAS, SPEAKS TO 

STORAGE MAGAZINE EDITOR DAVID TYLER ABOUT HOW 

MAKING STORAGE MANAGEABLE IS KEY TO SUCCEEDING IN 

THE HPC MARKET 

Dave Tyler: When we spoke last year 

it was early days for your ActiveStor 

Director appliance, which you 

described as the first half of a broader 

strategic plan at the time - What has 

happened since then? 

Faye Pairman: Right now, we're feeling 

pretty lucky - the timing is right, and the 

market is open for us to introduce a new 

high-performance storage product. It's a 

shifting landscape where we think the 

market is ready for not only a new file 

system with some real innovations, but 

there are also different opportunities for 

partnerships. As you've said, we started 

shipping our Director Appliance around a 

year ago. It was received enthusiastically, 

adopted immediately and has been 

trouble-free from the day we shipped it. It 

has been a great release for us. Now 

we've announced ActiveStor Ultra, our new 

storage system built on off the shelf 

commodity hardware which completes our 

appliance offering - all based on PanFS, 

our brand new parallel file system, built 

from the ground up. Of course, the file 

system relies on all the years of 

development experience we've had in 

parallel file systems which is critical to 

customer satisfaction out the gate. The 

innovation is twofold: firstly, the price 

performance profile, and the second 

notion is that it's portable. 

There's been a lot of noise around 

software-defined storage, and we were 

very specific in our decision not to call this 

software-defined storage. We call it a 

portable file system, designed to run on 

commodity hardware but with specific 

hardware requirements that assure we 

meet our customers exacting requirements 

for performance. This allows us to take 

advantage of all the hardware advances 

that are being developed by ODMs and 

OEMs. They keep improving their products 

at a rapid pace and we can now take 

advantage of those product 

improvements. It also allows us to build 

unique partnerships with end customers, 

OEMs or VARs who have their own ideas 

about the price/performance trade-offs 

they choose to make. We can now stay on 

the leading edge of hardware 

performance and have the freedom to go 

to market with a broad variety of partners 

and platforms. 

DT: Does that mean that your approach to 

the channel will change? 

FP: I don't think our approach to 

supporting the channel will change. I think 




MAGAZINE

INTERVIEW: INTERVIEW: PANASAS 

"There's a lot of frustration among storage buyers today, because of the complexity of 

products. They would love to get the ease of use, ease of management, the 

serviceability and support that you would expect from an enterprise-class product, but 

they need a high level of performance at a price they can afford. With ActiveStor Ultra 

and the portable PanFS file system, we're able to achieve that." 

we will continue to participate in the sale; 

but we are giving the channel more ability 

to integrate and add value. With a 

portable file system, VARs can resell a fully 

integrated appliance from Panasas or they 

can port our software to other hardware 

platforms. We will also be better able to 

service the integrator channel now - 

organisations that develop specific HPC 

solutions for the marketplace, so it actually 

broadens our go-to market opportunity. 

DT: Where are you in terms of users for 

the new file system - will it allow you to 

target new markets, for example, once it 

rolls out to production users? 

FP: Right now, ActiveStor Ultra with the 

new PanFS file system is in beta. We are 

fortunate to have customers who help us 

test our products with production use 

cases - testing beyond what we can do in 

our own labs. We are testing with a large 

energy company, a major aerospace 

manufacturer and with a well-known 

university which uses the product primarily 

for genomics, as well as other science 

applications. We will test a variety of use 

cases to assure quality and usability prior 

to release. 

Marketwise, with commercial HPC 

growing at 8 percent, there are always 

new customers entering the market and 

existing customers expanding their 

deployments, all of whom are looking for 

the kind of performance and value we 

provide. Market growth is driven by new 

use cases such as Artificial intelligence 

(AI), precision medicine and other 

scientific applications, but adoption is 

accelerated by vendors like Panasas who 

can make complex deployments fast, 

simple and affordable. 

Our commitment to supporting the 

commercial HPC market has meant we've 

invested heavily in usability, reliability and 

customer support in addition to product 

performance - our approach has never 

been performance at the lowest possible 

cost. Our commitment to our customers' 

success is deeply woven into our 

company culture and goes beyond the 

way we build our products but extends to 

everything we do. I believe it is why we 

have stood the test of time. Now, with 

ActiveStor Ultra and the new PanFS file 

system, we can deliver on our promise of 

leading-edge performance, along with a 

great customer experience, all at a price 

point that is extremely compelling. This 

should open the entire HPC market to us. 

That's our bet. 

DT: You've spent the last couple of years 

very focused on the manageability aspect 

of storage - is that approach now paying 

dividends for Panasas? 

FP: What we've learned is that there's a lot 

of frustration among storage buyers today, 

because of the complexity of products. 

They would love to get the ease of use, 

ease of management, the serviceability 

and support that you would expect from 

an enterprise-class product, but they need 

a high level of performance at a price they 

can afford. 

With ActiveStor Ultra and the portable 

PanFS file system, we're able to achieve 

that. Not just the serviceability, ease of 

management and ease of use, but now 

we're at the highest levels of performance 

and offer a price performance profile that 

dramatically shifts with the portability of 

this product to commodity hardware. 

There's a lot of frustration with the 

manageability side of the other file systems 

that are out there, and I think that is what's 

attracting people to come and hear what 

we have to say. 

Our competitors have been talking for 

years about how the commercial market is 

the big market opportunity, the big growth 

opportunity. They may say that they're 

making their products more reliable, more 

manageable and with higher levels of data 

protection, but it's a big challenge - and if 

you look at what they say they want to do, 

Panasas is already doing it. 

More info: www.panasas.com 




STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

31

OPINION: RANSOMWARE RANSOMWARE 

TAMING THE BEAST 

ROD HARRISON, CTO OF STORCENTRIC, EXPLAINS HOW THE MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT 

INDUSTRY CAN REIN IN THE 'RANSOMWARE BEAST' 

It may seem impossible to keep up with the 

ever-evolving malware behind ransomware 

attacks. Despite best efforts to strengthen 

protective and recovery measures, 

ransomware and the cyber criminals behind it 

continue to bite back. The media and 

entertainment industry in particular increasingly 

entrusts precious resources to online storage. 

Those creating ransomware attacks show no 

signs of stopping as it becomes an extremely 

profitable trade. Production companies must 

therefore implement the right data protection 

measures to ensure they don't get caught in a 

difficult situation. 

SPOILER ALERT 

Production companies store vast volumes of 

information, with each frame and clip stored, 

edited and often replicated multiple times - it is 

perhaps one of the most data-intensive 

industries. For cyber-criminals, this can be a 

highly enticing industry to target. Many 

production companies don't only generate 

revenue through their output, but build a 

campaign around each launch, designed to 

draw in a wider audience. If material, plotlines 

or spoilers are leaked in advance, it can not 

only impact revenues but also cause 

reputational damage and, in some cases, 

there could be legal action. After all, why 

would millions of viewers pay for the first 

screening when the content is widely available 

online? 

So, what can organisations do about 

cyberattacks? Even if you decide to pay out, 

there is no guarantee that this will resolve 

anything. The real issue is that anti-malware 

products are not infallible, and when they fail, 

conventional computer architectures readily 

allow data corruption by malware 

masquerading as an authorised user. 

Organisations need a platform in place that 

not only delivers the required performance, 

scalability and capacity, but with encryption 

and security capabilities that will enable a 

complete comprehensive platform. 

SECOND LINE OF DEFENCE 

Once ransomware impacts a production 

company there are two major concerns: the 

first being that information has leaked, but the 

second is being locked out of all existing files. 

Investing in a secure archive platform can help 

to combat both of these challenges with a 

second line of defence. 

Archive platforms can ensure data is 

protected and encrypted throughout the 

process from video ingest to long-term archive. 

This means the organisation has complete 

control over who has access to files, and the 

period of time in which they can have access, 

and control over any editorial rights. With 

complete visibility and restricted authorisation, 

businesses can eliminate the threat of exposed 

data leaks. In addition, comprehensive archive 

platforms are available that offer auditing, 

integrity, and self-healing features allowing 

data to be tracked throughout its lifetime, 

protecting against silent data corruption and 

software errors. Simply put, archive platforms 

with these features can override any 

ransomware encryption. 

In addition to technology, there are 

preventative measures that businesses can 

implement to limit potential ransomware 

attacks. Ransomware gets into networks using 

familiar paths such as email chains and false 

websites, therefore taking time to educate 

users on email scams and how to check for 

genuine links can have a fundamental impact. 

It's important to regularly patch and update the 

management tools on all network devices, 

including BYODs. Enabling firewalls as well as 

running frequent backups can also help to 

ensure full precautions are met. Although a 

careful approach to IT is no guarantee that 

ransomware won't break through, it does help 

to ensure any threats are quickly identified and 

easily recovered from. 

Because workloads within the media and 

entertainment industry are highly dataconcentrated, 

preventative measures must be 

taken to conquer the ransomware beast. To 

make these methods work, data must be 

encrypted, archived and incorruptible. With the 

stakes high when it comes to reputation in this 

industry, everything that can be done must be 

done to prevent the damages of an attack 

should one happen. 

More info: www.nexsan.com/ransomware 

^ 



MAGAZINE

IP 

O 

europe 

9-10 October 2019, 

ExCeL London 

PART OF 

DIGITALTRANSFORMATION E PO 

OPTIMISING 

INFRASTRUCTURE; 

SCANNING THE 

HORIZON 

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN 

www.dt-x.io

RESEARCH: 

RESEARCH: CLOUD DATA MANAGEMENT 

HEADS IN THE CLOUD 

RECENT RESEARCH INDICATES THAT MANY CXOS ARE LOOKING TO EMBRACE CLOUD DATA 

MANAGEMENT TO BETTER MEET PROTECTION NEEDS AND LEVERAGE THE POWER OF THEIR DATA 

Over the past decade, the amount of 

data generated has exploded; by 

2025 we will generate more than 

175 Zettabytes of data each year, up almost 

two thirds from 2018. Organisations need to 

manage and protect this data no matter where 

it resides, but according to the latest industry 

survey results released today from Veeam, 73% 

of organisations admit to not being able to 

meet users' demands for uninterrupted access 

to data and services, costing the typical 

company $20 million a year. This highlights 

the devastating impact downtime can have on 

lost revenue, productivity, and customer 

confidence. 

However, this year's study shows that 

organisations are acting to combat this, with 

nearly three-quarters (72%) looking to 

embrace Cloud Data Management, often by 

exploiting hybrid cloud capabilities, to ensure 

success and drive more value from their data. 

The 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management 

Report surveyed more than 1,500 senior 

business and IT leaders from 13 countries and 

found that respondents are aware of the 

importance of data management to their 

business' success, pointing to greater 

productivity today, and the potential to drive 

business transformation in the future. 

"We are living in a data-driven age, and 

organisations need to wake up and take 

action to protect their data. Businesses must 

manage their data in a way that always 

delivers availability and leverage its value to 

drive performance. This is no longer a 

luxury, but a business necessity. There is a 

significant opportunity and competitive 

advantage for those who effectively manage 

their data. Ask yourself, are you confident 

that your business data will always be 

available? If you are unsure, it's time to act, 

and our study shows that many are not 

acting fast enough," said Ratmir Timashev, 

co-founder and Executive Vice President 

(EVP) of Sales & Marketing at Veeam. 

Organisations are looking to embrace the 

power of technologies such as the cloud, or 

hybrid cloud, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence 

(AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) to drive 

business success. Almost half of respondents 

admit that data protection is imperative to 

leverage these investments. 

Alarmingly, only 37% of businesses are very 

confident in their current backup solutions, with 

the majority (73%) admitting they cannot meet 

user demands. This inhibits the adoption of 

tools and processes that can drive business 

advantage, but leaders recognise work needs 

to be done; more than half of those surveyed 

are looking to deploy Intelligent Data 

Management and multi-cloud solutions across 

the business to address this failing. 

TOWARD SMARTER BUSINESS 

The 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management 

Report found that organisations are on a 

journey to become a more intelligent business, 

meaning they are leveraging technologies such 

as Cloud Data Management and AI to create 

a real-time view of the collective business and 

the ability to act intelligently on that insight. 

Timashev added: "We're seeing a global 

digital arms race develop today, with some of 

the world's most advanced economies at risk 

of being left behind when it comes to their 

digital adoption. It's essential that organisations 

get the right digital foundation in place to 

intelligently manage their data and safeguard 

their future. To achieve this, businesses must be 

united internally, with IT and the business 

working collaboratively and addressing cultural 

and skills challenges." 

More info: go.veeam.com/cloud-datamanagement-report-2019. 

^ 



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2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017 / 2018 

Storage is changing... 

Data is at the cornerstone of any organisation. The way in which you handle it 

 

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