Cloud complexity: why it’s good to be a DMaaS
Cloud computing is great news, apart from one thing.
The option to now build complex heterogeneous cloud environments gives us a massively expanded choice of deployment options to bring service-centric datacentre-driven virtualised data processing, analytics and storage options to bear upon contemporary IT workload burdens — which is great news, apart from one thing.
The clue is in the name and it’s the c-word at the start: complex heterogeneous cloud environments, are, well, pretty complex.
This issue is, when cloud data exists in various places, it creates a wider worry factor.
To explain… when elements cloud data have a footprint in SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)… then all that data needs to be ‘managed through its lifecycle’ – by which we mean, that data needs to be monitored so that we can assess enterprise Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and look to achieve consistency of service regardless of where data is ultimately stored.
Be a DMaaS
This is the pain point that Data Management-as-as Service (DMaaS) company Druva has aimed to address with its Druva Cloud Platform – the technology unifies data protection, management and intelligence capabilities for data.
Druva says that challenges in cloud arise due to what it calls the ‘patchwork of disparate systems’ and the need to administer them.
According to Druva, “Different clouds have different data management needs — IaaS, PaaS and SaaS have different protection and data management requirements that range from simple resiliency needs like backup and disaster recovery to more complex governance such as compliance, search and legal data handling.”
Veep of product and alliances marketing at Druva is Dave Packer. He insists that cloud means that IT teams must deal with growing data lifecycle complexity, including managing data over time for long term retention and archiving.
“If not done properly, lack of management can equate to high costs due to collecting too much dark data,” said Packer. “If a company’s data management is a mess while it exists in-house, then exporting it to the cloud can introduce even more data management challenges, and the increased cost to fix these can offset any anticipated savings.”
Druva Cloud Platform aims to provide a single point of data management and protection for workloads in the cloud.
The product comes with an integrated console/dashboard to be used for data management and protection, including analytics, governance and visibility into data across heterogeneous environments.