The growth of hybrid and public information technology (IT) services and offerings is underpinned by growing demands for data migration, governance, data mobility and analytics, because they support new business models, says data management multinational CommVault principal systems engineer Modeen Malick.

Data management capabilities are important for tapping into the benefits of cloud and virtualised IT ecosystems and to move data and workloads back and forth between various resources with the requisite protection and security in place at all stages, as well as to manage costs and facilitate quick and accurate analysis, he explains.

“Data protection regulations and expectations from clients are driving the need to ensure that the data is monitored, protected and controlled. These drivers and data management and stewardship capabilities are, fortunately, crucial for companies’ effective use of IT resources and, therefore, an investment as well as an administrative cost.”

Data protection, migration and ediscovery, as well as compliance and data governance, are important capabilities required in virtualised and abstracted infrastructure environments and cloud systems, he says.

While data governance, management and protection regulations, as well as best practices, are robust in the financial services industries, there are increasing regulatory pressures and requirements for the protection and management of data in all other sectors.

However, the best practices and international standards for sectors that are more mature in their use of cloud, such as financial services, are included as part of cloud and migration services, adds Malick.

CommVault provides a single data management pane for companies to manage their data across multiple sites, including private and public clouds, as well as across geographies, he says.

“Oil and gas companies, for example, must move and manage data across different jurisdictions and IT infrastructure. They have to securely protect the data while ensuring visibility and control. This is where our disaster recovery as a service, including backup, verification, replication, migration and archiving control, is done in the cloud to fulfil these needs.”

Further, Malick predicts that South African companies will become more comfortable with moving their data between cloud providers as the market grows and matures. Currently, limited cloud providers mean that companies are less likely to switch between service providers, unlike in the US, where companies often switch cloud service providers and move the associated data.

“We want to partner with our clients to ensure that they derive the value they expect from their cloud services, including the mobility and management of data and the life cycle of their cloud workloads.”

While most clients in South Africa adopt cloud services for the cost advantages, the need for an effective data management platform will grow and will support further transformation of companies’ IT environment. With the introduction of international cloud facilities and services locally, it is expected that the costs of cloud services will drop.

“Effectively leveraging these cloud services will require that companies ensure controlled migration of data, which is a key capability afforded by our data management platform. The capabilities used to manage the use of cloud services will become strategic building blocks for companies to adopt new technologies and support new business models,” concludes Malick.