Welcome aboard whatever your time zone wherever you are. This is digital transformation talk and I am your host Kevin Crane. Today we will look at overcoming the challenges of adopting a storage as a service solution. Look, it's no secret that organizations today face increasing pressure to manage growing volumes of data. According to IDC, by the end of the year, the world will generate over 175 zetabytes of data, and that's a lot. This highlights the need for scalable and adaptable storage solutions. And let's face it, managing data effectively is essential for organizations today looking to leverage advanced analytics and to drive innovation. So, how do you do it? Well, one way is adopting storage as a service, as a model that offers a path to greater agility and efficiency. But the transition is not without some challenges. Each step requires careful planning and execution. So in today, we'll explore three areas to consider in our strategies. We'll look at ways to evaluate your current infrastructure and build a business case for transitioning to storage as a service. We'll [snorts] explore how to choose the right provider and ensure a seamless integration with your existing tools and infrastructure. And I'll ask our guests to identify some common pitfalls in data migration and what we should do about those. So by the end of today's session, I hope that you'll take away some practical and actionable insights to help you navigate your storage as a solution adoption. We're going to dive in here in just a moment, but first I want to say thank you to everyone attending today, and that includes folks that are joining us live on LinkedIn. Welcome aboard, and hello to everyone joining us today on Zoom as well. Thank you so much for being with us. During today's discussion, we'd like to hear from you, too. So, I'd like to encourage everyone attending today to participate, join in with your comments in the chat section, and if you have a question along the way, just jump on in. I will attempt to get some of your questions and comments into the flow of the show and we may have a few minutes also at the end for your questions. All right, with all of that said, let's bring aboard our great panel of guests today. Starting with Adam Gale, field CTO for AI and cyber security at NetApp. Adam, welcome aboard. Where are you calling in from today?>> I am calling in from Dubai today. So, apologies if there's a bit of a time delay, but delay, but >> it is a bit of a time delay. I hope. Yeah. Okay. Well, Adam, thank you so much for being with us. It's great to have you with us. Also joining us today is Aean Hussein, vice president, North America, head of sales and GTM uh for NTT data. Aean, you've been with us before. It's great to see you again. Where are you calling in from today?>> Yes, great to be here. I live in Houston, Texas, but right now I'm in New York City and uh joining you from there. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Aean. It's great to see you. Welcome aboard. And also today we have Jason Bachara. He is a consultant at Bachara Consulting Services. Jason, welcome aboard. Where are you calling in from? >> I am calling from uh California, sunny Orange County, California. >> Ah, wonderful. Very good. All right. Well, gentlemen, it is great to have you with us today. Thank you so much for joining us. I'd like to get our discussion started today by pointing our attention to an article published recently by Forbes. The article talks about how cloud migration promises cost savings, agility and scalability, security, but poor planning can cause disruption and unexpected costs. And that's kind of what we're here today talking about. The authors stressed the need to assess organizational readiness, and the article provides several key steps to include in our assessments, evaluating providers, workloads, data, and other things, uh, including security. Um, I'm curious what the panel thinks about this article. Did it miss anything important? Adam, I'd like to start with you. What did you think about the article? >> Um, I thought it raised some good points. I thought one of the best points I think would be define your objectives. I think a lot of people lose focus of their objectives. Um, and take the opportunity to pro improve insights of your data. Knowing your data to any cloud transformation or journey is absolutely critical. If you don't go, you don't know where you're going to go. But for me, there was one quite big glaring hole here. and it was data sovereignty. Uh it does kind of touch on it a little bit when it discusses security but data sovereignty is a growing topic particular concern in European Union but of many other countries and geos too and I would have liked to have seen that addressed. [snorts]>> Tell me more uh how does data sovereignty fit into all of this our evaluations and strategies and why is it so important? Um data sovereignty isimportant because um it governs where you process store data uh depending on the laws and regulations of which country you're residing in or where you're collecting that data on who that data belongs to and this is becoming ever more important in a more regulated world as organizations span the globe and their customers span the globe but also you saw some pretty big geopolitical moves recently where in a French court Microsoft said that using US cloud act they would give up customers data European customers data um to the US government which was sent ripples as you probably imagine through the European Union and uh some companies are making strides now to create sovereign cloud platforms again that's something that I would like to have seen addressed here because there are workloads out there which you may wish to protect by keeping on premise or by having it in a sovereign cloud in which case you need to know your data I go back to knowing your data >> all data has sovereign requirements >> well that's a great point Adam and please um let's keep that in mind as we talk today and then see if we can um ensure that we talk about data sovereignty as part of our strate strategic assessments and some of ouraction items today. Um Aean, I'm curious what your thoughts on the article uh what you thought of the article. What steps did you see that you feel are most important? >> Uh the article was well written. So one of the things I focused on is the fact that data is the currency for all things AI right now. Right? So if you think about how you going to train your models, data is going to be the catalyst of success behind it. But what data does is gives you an attack surface that is now significantly larger andone of the things that I want to focus more on is securing the data because if you don't have secured data, you're now opening up avenues for uh exploits andonce that exploit happens, it is going to be very challenging to lock it down and protect it. So one of the things that I look at in conversation like this when especially when we talk about data as a service or storage as a service uh putting too much data in hot storage or maybe even cold storage is unnecessary because it's creating an attack vector that sometimes you need to think about in a commercial enterprise space. [clears throat] >> Amen. That's interesting. The article did stress the critical need to embed security from the start. What do you suggest?uh know your data. That's one of the things you need to do a structure around a structure. You have to know your data. And look, if you're going to be in an enterprise place and you're going to take data and make it a commercial aspect of your business decision-m, if you don't know what you have, you're leaving money on the table for many reasons, but also spending money on necessarily storing stuff that you don't need to store, right? Data is uh only as good as the data it is, right? So, you have to know what you have and governance is a big part of that. >> All right, Jason, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the article. Did it miss anything important and what do you recommend in terms of some of the recommendations that it pres presents to us for our listeners today? >> Well, I mean I definitely echo the sentiments of Adam and I here. Um, knowing your data is important. Uh, what type of data do you have? Is it, you [clears throat] know, compliance data? Is it just application data? Just general raw information, company secrets, you know, R&D type stuff, um, you know, top secret type of information. And that you know again to echo Iman's sentiments the security of the data is important and that's at all stages whether it's at the beginning of on-prem gear or a cloud migration or end of life cycle services of your equipment or your services uh having the data be secured is veryimportant. Nobody wants to be in the media for a data breach. Nobody wants to be have their name associated with you know that term and um the type and nature of your data will be the driver of >> how do we secure it and then you know the cost associated with that and so you know from a hardware perspective where I sit um uh that that's kind of where my expertise falls u you know being secure is important all the way through whether the gear is on prem or up in the cloud you it's still on somebody's equipment. I think that's a lot of things some people miss that it's up here in the cloud somewhere where it's really on somebody else's equipment and you're using space or time from that service provider and they're not all created alike. So, >> all right. Very good. The article is how to streamline cloud migration and ensure its success. It's published by Forbes. It is here in the chat feature. If you'd like to take a look at that article, we'd like to hear what you think as well. uh just click on the link and you can access that article directly. [clears throat] All right, gentlemen, I'd like to move to our uh main body of discussion today. We have three things to talk about. Um and the first is evaluating your current infrastructure and building a business case for transitioning to storage as a service. As organizations face the challenge of managing growing amounts of data, existing infrastructure, understanding your infrastructure becomes critical as a first step. Adam, how can organizations effectively align their architecture with their business objectives to create acompelling case for storage as a st service adoption? >> I think this is a great subject and a great leading question to start off there because I talked to so many organizations which are asking this exact question. Um, and Ithink obviously it starts from knowing your data, but it isn't always this big bang migration or this big [clears throat] things in the cloud. Um you could start pretty simple and pretty small with things like using backup as a service uh for storage or disaster recovery uh asa service as like a start of attend to get you going and these are some of the areas which I discuss with my customers because as you become more embedded in it and more comfortable with it you can then look at service cataloges you know speeds so those high volume high transaction workloads they'll require a different storage as a service to something that's lower called a tier which I think was mentioned earlier and as you become more comfortable with If you know your data, you can split it out into these uh into these tiers and really drive a good TCO, really drive, you know, value for money because I think 80% of data that we come across is unused. It's only 20% really that a company use. So if you think about that, only 20% of the data you need needs to be on tier one sort of storage.>> So uh those are sort of areas that we sort of start off with. So 80% let me get this straight in your experience approximately 80% of data is unused. Um you know I've heard that stat before I never really believed it but this is seems like this is coming from the real world. So this exercise in moving storage as a service just the exercise alone may identify unused redundant obsolete data that can save you money and reduce your risk just from that analysis alone. Am I about right with that? Absolutely right. And obviously in the modern world, you can automate all this too because as data falls out of favor um and becomes less used, say it's all powerpoints or it's transactional data like records which just basically time out and become old. You can automate the process have them move down the tiers to start automatically saving you money and the same uh in the opposite direction. Obviously we're going to do analytics as mentioned earlier about AI.is know driver behind a lot of data at the moment and that data becomes hot and bubbles to the top. Maybe you've got AI running models on it. You can then push it back up the tier and only use really the tiers that you want. Fantastic cost savings. Whereas if you weren't using storage as a service as a model, you'd have to maybe do a bit of manual labor here. We have to have some people moving these things around for you or thinking about it. It's all automated now. It's all built into the systems. So there's some really key savings here. Aean, from your perspective helping enterprises in North America, what are some key indicators that an organization's current storage infrastructure is ready or not ready to transition to storage as a service? >> That's a great question. Right? So, whenever somebody's talked about storage or investing in storage from a hardware perspective,uh people forget uh you can only get in and get out as fast as your pipe allows you to get in and get out. So a lot of the investments not made in topology when you're doing storage as a service and assuming that your network and capability and bandwidth is able to take care of it and you just get sunk because if you're sitting in like as I am in you know a shared network environment and I need to do some heavy data analysis and if my network bandwidth is not going to help me and I have a storage as a service thatkills me and guess what's what I'm going to do at that point? I'm going to copy that data ahead of time put it on my laptop and carry it with me. Now I have to miss the purpose of that whole in intent of having it as a service. Uh so uh the other part of that is dduping data is a big part of uh how you have to think about store. >> Interesting point. So it's not just about the amount of uh storage or the cost of it all but the moving it around is an important factor that must be considered.>> Absolutely indeed. [snorts] Now Jason, um, when evaluating our existing systems, what are some of the most common gaps or hidden risks that we could encounter that could derail our storage as a service migration initiative? Well, definitely if you have any areas where there's some, you know, lacking security, if you have some open channels or open ends uh in your infrastructure and your communications infrastructure, I mean, that that's very important toshore all that up. Um, especially if you're migrating to storage as a service, you know, again to IM's point here, if your pipe is only big enough to have so much traffic going through it and you're doing a huge metadata analysis or whatever it is and your bandwidth can handle that, uh, it's equally important thatpipe is verysecured as well. And so again, security is always going to be paramount. I think one of the things that people also, you know, maybe don't really realize these days is that the storage itself has come down considerably in cost. I mean, you used to have, you know, 10 racks of terabyte drives, spinny drives consuming lots of energy, lot generating a lot of heat. And now you have, you know, uh, SSDbased drives that don't spin, that don't consume as much energy, that you could fit in one rack of, you know, 42U storage, uh, as much as you could or you would need 10 racks for, you know, a few years ago. So, the footprint of a lot of storage capacity has tremendously been reduced. And so, that's part of the costbenefit analysis. whatused to cost you a lot to have so much equipment to store the data now may not cost you as much and so do I really need it storage as a service or is it something that makes more sense on prem considering other factors like the accessibility to the data the pipe that controls the data coming in and out the security the type of nature of the data again is it static data that just sits there for compliance reasons and it's just information we need to back up like a law firm or is it research data that's being accessed and manipulated and used ina daily function? And so, you know, knowing the data is important, securing the data is important, and then knowing yourbusiness process and flow. What exactly are we in the business of doing? Are we having to access this data all the time? And is it only 20% of it or is it more orless? Uh, and you know, all of those things are part of the conversation. But I think one of the things again that I'll stress that people do sometimes miss is that the cost of storage has come down and the footprint has come down. And so I think that's thatplays into the finance guys thinking about the cost ofa storage versus you know owning the equipment.>> Absolutely. Thatdoes make a great point. in fact makes me start considering well maybe on-prem might be a better application for me especially if I can reduce or focus only on 20% of the data that I have so now I'm working with a much smaller archive of data uh I have much less cost and infrastructure that's needed for storage so it might make a reverse sort of compelling argument um for keeping some systems on prem you bring up a great point because those need to be thoroughly understood and evaluated inthe strategy assessment. Uh, and we have to sort of maybe challenge some of our assumptions about what might be good or what might not be good. Um, I think these are all important points for our listeners as we're considering how we might make a business case for transitioning to storage as a service. >> I just want to gentlemen, >> yeah, please go. Yes, >> Jason mentioned security there and I think that's one of the value added services which is really good for things like this. Um if you are choosing a uh you know storage as a service, you can have security already baked into it with you know um analytics uh inthe background looking for nefarious actions or people doing things they shouldn't normally do. So uh you do get that little bit of added security and plus someone's upgrading these things for you. They're plugging the gaps, you know, doing software updates on the box. So that kind of takes the headache away from people. Um, I do like that a lot about this because as someone who upgrades stuff a lot, I always end up breaking it. Um, when someone else is looking after it for you, it takes a headache. Right. headache. Right. headache. Right. Great points, Adam. Absolutely.I love this. All right. So, before we move on, I want to open it up just to all of you, uh, all of us today. If I'm putting together a business case and a strategy and I'm evaluating all of these options, whatshould be the topline things that I should be looking at? I'm thinking about security and ROI and access.What am I missing? Whatare some of those large categories that should be part of my strategic thinking process? Anyone? process? Anyone? process? Anyone? >> Letme let me give you a few points on that if you don't mind, C Kevin. So, one of the things I've realized in this world is asking the question as who am I doing this for? Like if you're going to be an IT cost center or a budget owner or a CFO, who am I doing this for is a big question that people don't ask because sometimes you don't need to do it for anybody. So, don't do it at all. uh especially if you need to get recover cost and show TCO uh it is unlikely for us to have an organization who needs data that never gets used. So don't spend time on that. >> All right, very good. Um, all right. >> It's really it's, you know, a holistic approach andI think Adam nailed something early on regardless of if you're going to migrate to storage as a service ina big chunk or for a big portion of your ERP or your systems or whatnot, there are some musthaves. So like backup as a service or disaster recovery, you have to have something built in for that piece of the puzzle there. And so thattypically would be on somebody else's equipment. that's a at a colo a data center up in the cloud somewhere and so that that'sa piece of the puzzle and then if you can move and transition data into that storage as a service arena and then keep only the 20% that you use on prem the other 80 is static sitting somewhere when you need it um so you know the flow of the data is very important you know how you're accessing it what you're using it for uh and having certain elements as part of your strategy is very important and you know is your security better than Amazon's or Azures or Metas you know toAdam's point you know pro probably not those guys are continuously innovating and iterating and coming up with hole and plug fixes but there are you know there's always going to be attack points on prem off-rem whatever there's always going to be someone trying to get in and you got to keep them out >> Adam a final thought for us before we move on >> sure yeah um I think those are great points Um, one thing I would add to this though is going back into the security thing which I always seem to do, sorry about that, is using the behavior analytics, uh, whether it be onrem or in the cloud. I think this is a fantastic thing. I think it's the future of cyber security, particularly for storage really is because we literally can't train enough people to uh, you know, toprotect us. You go on LinkedIn now, you'll find thousands of cyber security jobs open. So, we have to use the tools and AI is the tool here. We use AI models trained on your environment looking for things that are not normal, people doing things they shouldn't be doing. And when someone's doing that in your environment, trying to steal your crown jewels, which is the data, or trying to change it and xfill it, then those things respond in submilliseconds and stop threats in their tracks. Um, you can actually do those on prem as well, uh, or storage as a service in the cloud. But those things are critical for me.>> This is digital transformation talk. We are here today with Adam Gail from NetApp. Aean Hussein from NT data and Jason Bachara from Bachara Consulting. We're talking about overcoming the challenges of adopting storage as a service. Now gentlemen, I'd like to move on to our next discussion point and that is choosing the right provider and ensuring our integration is seamless uh with our existing environments. Um it is important to select the right provider. Of course, it's vital for ensuring compatibility also with our current systems. Adam, how can organizations leverage modern cloud native storage tools to facilitate smooth integration and ongoing management with minimal friction?>> So, this is a really big subject and I quite like this because it feeds into one area that I'm quite interested in, which is regulation. I know I'm a very exciting chap, aren't I? Um, so European regulation is mandating the ability to move data and services around clouds. So you might not necessarily be looking at a particular cloud provider and going that's the one I want to use forever. You might be [clears throat] able to want to move to another one >> and this sort of functionality is coming and if you part it's already there. So I would personally be choosing a cloud which going back to sovereignty meets my sovereignty requirements. Am I going to choose a provider that's based in the European Union or in the US or has elements in the European Union and then I can burst into the US for where I need? That would be I'd be looking at. Second part I'd be looking at for as well is those additional security requirements um as I mentioned earlier, you know, the ARP. I won't go into that again. And finally, usability because I find management the management plane of all these things is often the hardest. So, I'd be looking for something that is ubiquitously easy to manage. And obviously, I work for NetApp and our storage plugs into all the major providers and is very,easy to use. So, I'm a big fan of our company as you can probably tell. >> Well, that's a good point. If you can't use it, if you can't manage it, you can't use it. You can't leverage it. So, that makes a ton of sense. All right. Amen. From your perspective, what factors should we be using and prioritizing when selecting a provider, especially when considering scalability and things like long-term growth? >> So, there's two ways to look at it. I look at it from fit for purpose. Uh Idon't want vendor lock in. So, what I would say is don't buy the same brand just for the purpose of a good deal, for commercial terms, whatever it is, because you need to fit the purpose you need it for. Like sovereignty is a great example of it. So, when I think of data, I look at it as a commodity. I want to be able to use like let let's dial it down to the consumer economics like a cate hard drive or a hard drive from Mac store whatever it is I want to not be tied to the vendor but I still want the service of the data so what I start focusing on is a software layer which makes the software that makes this uh storage as a service efficient there be cloud public or private right because I don't want to be locked ina hardware device or a contract device that does not allow me to scale or does not have a small size like not one should fit uh All right, we have to have adifferentiation. So that means that I have to spend time on what it is, where it is, how I need to do it. Just like Adam was saying, you have to get all those figured out because then you can just buy the commodity device from a vendor of right price and cost and then just have that layered ability to do the same thing, recover it and store it or use it in an format. So that's one of the things I would look for is like I don't have to be uh NetAppentric, EMCcentric, whatever it is. I need to find out why do I need the storage? Do I need the cycles, the storage, the hard drives, the spindles, uh theyou know SSDs, whatever those things are based on the use and then go find the best vendor for it. And that's what consultants would do that you'll find the best fit purpose of it because sovereignty is a great example of this. Not all countries have all players available especially the Middle East countries. Sovereignty is strictly regulated by the sovereign nation itself.>> All right. So selecting the right provider is important but integration is critically important and Jason I'm curious about your perspective on integration. What challenges do you see most frequently during uh storage as a service adoption and how can organizations proactively address them before they become a challenge? Well, I think if it's if you're simply just going to use the storage and you're uploading your data and it's being stored somewhere, you know, yes, the software that you're using, the analytics, the AI, those things arevery important. Um, the layers in there to help you slice and dice the data and accessibility and all that good stuff. um you know it's there's so many facets to it whenyou're you know when you lay it out and think about it and at the end of the day thebest provider uh you know may not be the most expensive one. You know there'sacustomized tailored solution for every uh scenario out there and really knowing your data knowing your information knowing how your data is used. I mean if some of the challenges inmigrations for example when you're switching ERPs you can bring a whole organization down if that's not managed correctly. Um, so ifyou're moving data around, but you're not really changing the software that you're using or the enterprise, you know, resource planning software thatyour company works on youdon't there's not that many pitfalls Idon't think. But if you're moving to a whole different system in terms of the software layer as well and now are we doing double data entry so that we can have some validity in our data and make sure there's continuity there while our new systems are up in place. In fact, the company I work for now, we just went through an ERP migration and uh went we it went pretty well because we managed it, you know, along the way in baby steps, but there are companies that, you know, change ERPs and they're down for six months and never recover because of the integration, you know, nightmares. Um, so it really depends on >> Well, we have a question or comment coming in from uh one of our guests today, Esme. Thank you for your uh question today. Esme asks, "As more enterprises move to storage as a service, how should I leaders balance the benefits of agility with governance, compliance, and data sovereignty concerns, especially when dealing with regulated industries? I'll open it up to the panel today. Anyone have a comment or uh some advice for ESM?" >> Let me take that. Go ahead, Alan. No,apologies. You go first. >> Yeah. I was going to say I think the mistake, not mistake, the challenge there is IT leaders. I would actually look at business leaders. Uh they are the ones that should be leading. IT leaders are order takers in this case. >> Iwant to echo that as well. Um this is something that I would sit with my chief data officer or somebody who understands compliance and risk. Um because regulation can be a bit of a minefield. But first of all, it goes back to again, I hate to keep repeating myself, knowing your data. And we have tools for this. Tools that will scan your environment, place it in the buckets, whether it's PPI, personal identifier information, or whether it's health records and those sort of things. Placing them in the right uh in the right buckets. Then you can begin that journey. You can begin that journey of good governance and good compliance. But until you do that, really, it's a fool's errand. So you need that. And then once you've got that, you can start making those business decisions about where do I want to keep this? What regulation do I actually need to abide by? Um that would be my approach and this is again a conversation we have constantly with our customers as they are looking to meet regulatory requirements such as DORA digital operational resilience. That's the finance one or things like NIS 2 which is critical infrastructure. >> All right. Very good. We are here at digital transformation talk. We're talking about migrating uh to astorage as asolution uh approach. We are looking at various factors to consider in our strategic assessment of moving forward. And one of the we're wondering what the common pitfalls are to avoid. Uh as data migration presents several challenges that can impact business operations, understanding and mitigating risks ahead of time is essential for successful transition. Adam, how can automation and AI help with us and reduce our errors and downtime during a storage as a solution data migration? >> So, another fantastic question really because automation is really creeping into everything. Now um I mentioned some key areas earlier which is moving those workloads around for you really taking uh the burden off your IT staff where it used to be uh you know those legacy tasks that's fantastic whether it's moving it to a different you know to a different cloud or a different tier of storage cold hot lukewarm those sort of things and um automating development and spinning up new environments. So automation really bleeds into everything. Um as well as security which you know isa obvious mention there. Um sorry did you say what the pitfalls were as well? >> Make sure I'm answering the question right.>> Well Adam as you're talking I'm curious youwere we've been talking about know your data is uh has been sort of a theme throughout our discussion today. And early on you mentioned that say 80% of data is not used. um understanding that 80% in the past would have been very difficult to do almost a manual process. How is AI helping with that sort of assessment from the very start? >> That's great. So, um the way ours work is it will scan through the storage and look for data that has been touched. It's quite easy really. it'll have a fingerprint whether it's been accessed last access records and then as it doesn't get touched it just bubbles down slowly but surely gets pushed onto the uh lower tiers and then if someone calls for it you could use a caching mechanism for a quick access as it will race ahead and read and predict what you're going to need next because often people access things in patterns we know what they're going to ask for after they b that excel file they're going to ask for the powerpoint or they're going to ask for the next thing sort of race ahead and get those things and this is where things like AI come in uh come into play as well. >> Um, >> Um, >> Um, >> sorry. >> sorry. >> sorry. >> And thoseare tools that were not available just a few years ago. So, the game has really changed now. >> It fantastically has. Um, I've been storage almost 20 years. I know you can probably tell by the gray in my beard. And the things that have changed are amazing. I know Jason touched on one earlier, which is systems have gotten so much smaller these days. We've compressed everything into tinydiscs. And one area that I don't think we mention enough here is how good that is for the environment. How good it is. Less heat, less power used, less data center space. This is fantastic news. And um also if you don't need your deator, delete it. Delete it because it's good for the environment and it's good for your wallet, too. >> All right. Amen. I'd like to ask you what you feel are the most common pitfalls you see during large scale data migrations and how can we plan to avoid those?Uh thebiggest pitfall is you think it's done right the first time. You need to go back and verify. Look these are concurrency in many cases. Data is very powerful. If you're not doing DR tests or data uh spot checks, you are going to be in a world of hurt when you really need that data for whatever purpose it is. I've been in the receiving end of it where we assumed everything was good and then realizing everything was not. Andthere is a big challenge with that from not just the hardware layer. It's not just a technical fault. It could be just the transmission fault of it. You know, sometimes those error corrections on copy technologies. Don't do the right thing and you will never catch that unless you're a data engineer that is actually governing that data transmission at a very transactional level. So I would say uh once you do it verify and then you'll realize through verification that you don't need it. One of the biggest things I've learned from that is DDUP. I know a lot of the storage vendors have DDUP technology built in natively, but even at the DDUP at a business layer, like if I have a file that I shared with you, Kevin, and you stored it in your C drive and I have it on my network drive, we don't need that two copies. >> Right >> Right >> Right now, Jason, there will be times when things happen. How should organizations plan for unexpected downtime or data loss risks during the migration process? Well, there is a point in the process where you have to have yourlegacy flow continue while you're migrating to your new thing, whatever that is. And so, usually there's a hard cut off. We're going to do it for 30, 60, 90 days, whatever it is. Andoftentimes it gets kicked out. But I wouldn't restrict myself to we have to be done within 30. I mean obviously cost is a factor but if you can continue until you get to a point where you feel comfortable and it may not be correct even after the fact until you actually cut away uh into your new lane there that you won't realize that oh wait this isn't functioning how we thought it was going to function you know toIman's point earlier there but you need to have sort of dual entry or your legacy uh you know flow continue while your new road is set up andthe cut off can be painful sometimes. Uh and so the longer you can give yourself time tomake that cut off, the better. The more you can go through and make sure you work all the kinks out, so to speak, uh the better off you'll be in the long run. And you might not even be right after the fact because a lot of times you won't realize it until that hard cut off is done that oh wait a minute, you know, here's uh oh, here this thing popped up. We didn't see this because we were doing dual entry or whatever it was. And now that we're relying on the flow this way, now here's what's broken. And that's inevitable. It'sgoing to happen. Having a lot of patience is important. Um making sure you take care of those mission critical items first. Uh and avoid anyhang-ups with those things. That's paramount. And of course, all the while securing the whole process. And with AI and analytics and all of the tools available today, the process is uh I would say a lot more manageable than it was even three or five years ago. Um so there's a lot of advancements and accelerators happening around us on both the hardware and software level in terms of reducing footprint and size and increasing thecapabilities of the software and the AI and the tools. Um you know it'scrazy thespeed with which we can go and where we can go now. All right. Very good. Now, look, we have a question coming in from uh Mariah. And Mariah, I want to thank you for this question because you were thinking exactly along the lines that I was. I'm curious also. Mariah asked, "By beyond the technology itself, what best practices should business leaders adopt to prepare their teams and the process for smooth transition uh and long-term success?" I'd again like to open it up to the entire panel. any suggestions about how to prepare our teams for transition?>> Iwould say in the context of uh enterprises, you should have a policy that's not technology bound. For example, I worked for a company once where they had this mindset, a mantra, read it and delete it. Essentially, if you got an email or a document and you read it and if it was useful, you stored it. If it wasn't, you would delete it. So, you have to get to this place of efficiency before you even get to the cleanup and the governance and capability. So when you want to have a transition for long-term success, have a policy like [snorts]>> Adam, what about managing change? Look, if folks don't adopt the tools and don't embrace thestrategies, then even the best technology can fail. What are your suggestions for managing change to begin with? >> Absolutely. And in any technology implementation, the most difficult element is the human element. It always is. Technology generally works, but uh humans often get a little bit emotional. So, I would look for stakeholder buyin. I really,would. If I've got a team and we're looking to move to the cloud, I would be involving them quite a lot. I'd be involving them in every step of the process, making sure they know what we're doing and getting their feedback and also filling those skills gaps because a lot of the team might not be aware of some of the new things that we can do, the new features. Uh, I think Aean mentioned one earlier about um, uh, testing your backups. Now, all that's an automated now. It's one of our value added services. Absolutely brilliant. And you can do it with ransomware too. You could simulate ransomware attacks. These are all skills which I'd be teaching my team as we went on that journey. Take people with you is what I say because I prefer leaders. >> I prefer leaders, not bosses. And I want someone to lead me through change. >> Jason, any final words about how we can ensure our teams are prepared for the operational changes that come with integrating a new solution? >> Sure. I mean you definitely have to have a clear vision andbe able to communicate that vision to the team as to you know why uh we're doing this why are we're going in this direction uh to get that buy in to get those people to come along and that's where the leadership is very critical uh to be able to manage that managing expectations is important I think that's important in all facets of life managing the expectations of your employees of your colleagues ofthe transition of what's happening um you know bringing them up to speed keeping them in the looponprogress on hey we had a hangup here. This is what we're going to fix. Communication is very important. Having that flow uh continue througha migration and integration is veryimportant so everyone's kind of aware of where we're at. Here are some of the challenges we've had along the way. Here's how we fixed them and here's how we're continuing down the road. >> Well, Jason, Aean, Adam, it's been great speaking with you today. Okay, we're almost out of time, but before I let you go, I'm wondering if each of you could please provide us with one quick action item that we can use to take advantage of the ideas and advice today. Uh Jason, do you have an action item for us? >> For me, it's always from the hardware perspective because that'sthe field that I come from. Um it's always a costbenefit analysis. And the action item is uh don't discount the fact that on-prem hardware isn't as expensive as it used to be. it's come down in price and then look at it from a holistic approach of what you're doing and is there a space to have some up in the cloud and some on prem the 8020 that Adam alluded to earlier uh does it make it better for us to just go full cloud fully remote you really have to study it before you start moving and some guys just start moving before they study it so Iwould say do your homework first >> that is Jason Bachara from Bara Consulting Services Jason thank you so much for being with us today. >> Pleasure. >> Pleasure. >> Pleasure. >> Amen. I'm wondering if you have an action item for us. >> Ido. There's two ways to look at it. First of all, remember the days we talk about your carbon footprint. You have a debt to society in the way of carbon usage. Uh I I'm pivoting on that and saying there's a data debt. Know your data. I'm like, if you're creating unnecessary data, don't have that debt on yourself because it's not necessary. And I'm thinking about consumer and enterprise. Your dishwasher has data that probably doesn't need to be stored. yourwashing machine has data that doesn't need to be transmitted and stored. So, think of it that way. You have a data debt. If you know what that is, you will actually be good for the world, but also good for your protection and services and security just like Adam was uh telling us about. >> That is Aean Hussein, vice president, North America cloud services for NT data. Aean, thanks again for being with us today. Now, Adam, I'm wondering if you have an action item for us. >> I do. I'm going to go a little bit technical for anyone listening out there. Um, I'm going to go look into your environment. Make sure you're using quantum proof encryption because we are seeing data being stolen now. Encrypted data stored later, but when QA finally arrives, that data will be decrypted. Data is incredibly valuable. So, people are stealing it and holding on to it because storage is cheap. So, make sure you've got the latest encryption standards. And store your keys somewhere besides where you're storing the data. take it, put it somewhere else. >> That is Adam Gailfield CTO for AI and cyber security at NetApp. Adam Aean Jason, it's been great speaking with you today. Thank you everyone. What a great panel today. Your perspectives and advice are spot on. So, thank you so much. I hope that we get a chance to talk again soon. And to everyone else joining us today, thank you, too. Are you looking for more great sessions? Well, join us next week for our sister show, AI Talk, when we have a great panel of guests talking about AI adoption in the chemical industry and how we can transfer those advantages and lessons into other industries. That should be a great discussion. And if you'd like to find me, you can do so on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect there. Check me out. I'm Kevin Crane. And you can check out my weekly audio podcast, The Digital Transformation Podcast. But for now, that'll do it for this episode of Digital Transformation Talk. And until next time, I am Kevin Crane saying thanks for watching. [music]