June 2015, IDC #AP14998X

WHITE PAPER

The Data-Driven Organization: Unlocking Greater Value from Data and Minimizing its Associated Costs and Risks

Sponsored by: Commvault

Daniel-Zoe Jimenez

June 2015

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Data is a critical asset for any organization, but for it to be useful it needs to be accurate, secure, and

accessible. C-level executives are realizing that their organization's performance and competiveness

largely depend on how effectively they manage and use their data to improve decision making,

balanced against their ability to protect it.

Becoming a data-driven organization is no longer a choice, but a necessity. Making decisions based

on data-driven approaches not only increases the accuracy of results but also provides consistency in

how the results are interpreted and fed back into the business. This necessary shift in the way data is

stored, managed and analyzed requires organizations to move from departmental (or siloed)

approaches when managing their data assets, to an integrated data-driven culture.

However, several challenges continue to hinder businesses from becoming data-driven. The average

organization today collects more data than ever before, and the variety of data types that are stored,

managed, and analyzed has drastically increased. Data is also spread across different departments

and locations — not only on-premises but also in various silos, third-party datacenters, and in highly

virtualized environments — and in various formats. According to the IDC Asia/Pacific Next-Generation

Data Management Survey commissioned by Commvault to understand the top data management

drivers and challenges in the region, 40% of the 600 IT decision makers said that their information

management strategy — including backup, recovery, data protection and analytics — is managed at a

departmental level, inhibiting their ability to be capitalize on new opportunities, as well as mitigate

risks. The survey covered 10 countries: Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore,

Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and India.

The lack of an enterprisewide data management strategy is creating significant challenges for IT,

impacting storage budgets, and requiring governance processes. Moreover, all this is impacting the

organization's ability to harness the full value of all its data assets and to accurately assess the

associated costs and risks of inadequate protection. This is also exacerbated by the shift to what IDC

calls the "3rd Platform" which presents significant opportunities for businesses to drive future growth

and innovation but also evidences the gaps in traditional data management approaches. This is

particularly relevant given the growing pressure for regulatory compliance and heightened business

expectations.

This IDC White Paper explores today's data management challenges in the context of the 3rd

Platform, particularly around cloud and Big Data/analytics, how organizations can drive value from

their data, and the role of Commvault in enabling their customers become a data-driven organization.

METHODOLOGY

Insights in this White Paper are based on a combination of primary and secondary research, including

the results from the following surveys and studies:

IDC Asia/Pacific Next-Generation Data Management Survey sponsored by Commvault. During

the months of November and December 2014, IDC conducted this survey across vertical

industries in Asia/Pacific in order to understand the top data management drivers and

challenges in the context of major third platform trends like Big Data and cloud, as well as

other critical trends impacting this market. The results are based on insights gathered from

over 600 IT decision makers across Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Korea,

Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and India.

IDC C-Suite Barometer Survey 2015. The annual study provides intelligence and insights into

how over 1,000 organizations in the Asia/Pacific region, excluding Japan (APEJ), rate their

business and IT priorities, pressures and preferences in relation to achieving business goals.

IDC Asia/Pacific Smart Data Management Survey sponsored by Commvault. In

September/October 2013, IDC conducted this survey across vertical industries in Asia/Pacific

in order to understand the top data management drivers and challenges in the context of major

trends like Big Data and cloud. The results are based on insights gathered from over 500 IT

decision makers across Australia, New Zealand, China, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and

Thailand.

SITUATION OVERVIEW

The State of the Market in Asia/Pacific

Digital everything is on the rise. Big Data and analytics, social, mobile, cloud, and the Internet of

Things (IoT) are transforming consumers, enterprises, and governments. From an organization

perspective, this presents significant opportunities to drive future growth and innovation. But it also

challenges how businesses are run, requiring a radical transformation of both internal and external

processes and the way in which IT departments source and manage the underlying business-enabling

infrastructure. Organizations that fully embrace the change — from customer to datacenter — will lead

the way.

According to IDC's C-Suite Barometer Study 2015, the top business priorities in 2015-2016 are gaining

operational efficiency and productivity; companywide cost savings; and market expansion. These

priorities have direct implications on IT: first, automation and acceleration are becoming key themes

for the CIO; second, there is a focus on removing "fat" from systems of records; and third, business

agility expectations are on the rise. This is further evidenced by organizations' top 3 ICT priorities,

according to the same study. First, CIOs will focus on developing innovation cells to harness

technology and to gain competitive advantage; second, they will also look at improving or simplifying

IT infrastructures; and third, the IT organization will focus on building better management tools.

Going forward, the CIO will need to put greater focus on innovation to stay relevant and drive

competitive advantage for the organization. While a significant proportion of CIOs claimed that their

stagnant ICT budget can impact their ability to address these business requirements, they are

expected to generate cost savings that can be leveraged to invest in innovations.

To that end, it is no longer sufficient for IT to simply deliver productivity and efficiency gains. IT needs

to become a catalyst for business outcomes, and technology needs to be more deeply weaved into the

fabric of the business.

Also, IT will need to better focus on return on investment (ROI)-led initiatives, but also on ensuring the

cost savings that are obtained are redirected to the innovation agenda. A key factor to drive this

forward will be leveraging information assets for competitive advantage. This will require a renewed

focus on data governance over the management of the organizations' most critical data. This is an

essential step to becoming a data-driven organization.

Data Management Reality Check

Organizations' data management maturity in Asia/Pacific is evolving, with incremental progress made

over the last few years across processes, skills and technologies. However, differences in maturity are

more evident when looking at different countries, subregions, or industry verticals. According to the

IDC Next-Generation Data Management Survey, 40% of organizations across the Asia/Pacific said

their data management strategy — particularly that for backup, recovery, data protection and analytics

— is still managed at a departmental level.

In terms of subregions, there appears to be a growing number of organizations that have adopted an

enterprisewide approach as the percentage of respondents are smaller in South Asia (34%) and even

lower in the most mature IT markets, Australia/New Zealand (29%) — representing higher maturity. On

the other hand, 56% of organizations in North Asia have adopted departmental-level strategies,

evidencing their tactical and less strategic approaches to data management.

Key Drivers of Data Management

The lack of holistic or enterprisewide data management strategies can have a major impact on

business agility and performance. Not having access to the right data at the right time affects the

organization's ability to anticipate and respond to new market trends and address changing customer

requirements. Understanding what those customers' needs are and addressing their expectations can

be difficult if key customer data is spread across different applications, platforms and departments.

For example, marketers need to go beyond their own customer data to identify who the best customers

are or to ensure effective marketing campaigns. The different types of customer data managed by

marketing (e.g., Web and social) need to be integrated (and analyzed) with datasets from other

departments like sales and finance to have a clearer view of customer priorities, and to deliver on

those. Similarly, finance departments require better (and increasingly real time) access to key data

assets from various departments to ensure better company planning, as shown in Figure 1.

FIGURE 1

Top Drivers for Better Data access (and Overall Data Management)

N=600

Source: IDC AP Next-Generation Data Management Survey, 2015

Key Challenges for Data Management

A major impediment to data access and availability is data silos which are a growing challenge for

many organizations today. The lack of an enterprisewide data management strategy, well-defined

processes, and integrated technologies can be major contributors. However at the fundamental level,

these data silos are a reflection of how internal structures are organized in many businesses,

something that prevents the organization from fully leveraging all its data assets. Also, this makes it

difficult for the departments to operate cohesively, as these silos increase an organization's exposure

to the unknown, as well as create significant risks. Isolated data management approaches in which

business units only focus on meeting their specific data-related requirements can lead to inconsistent,

redundant, often unprotected and contradictory datasets which live in line of business (LoB)-specific

applications.

Another major concern is security. In the IDC Next-Generation

Data Management Survey, 29% of organizations across the

Asia/Pacific region, excluding Japan, cited security risks as

their top challenge created by data silos, compared to 34% in

Australia/New Zealand, 30% in South Asia, and 24% in North

Asia). Poor data management approaches can leave data

scattered in disparate silos across multiple applications and

platforms. This leads not only to increased storage costs, but

also makes key data assets inaccessible to the organization

and vulnerable to compliance issues, creating risks for the

organization.

Poor data management approaches

can leave data scattered in

disparate silos across multiple

applications and platforms. This

leads not only to increased storage

costs, but also makes key data

assets inaccessible to the

organization and vulnerable to

compliance issues, creating risks for

the organization.

The second challenge presented by data silos, as indicated by 15% of organizations in the Asia/Pacific

region, is the increased burden on IT to manage this complex environment (15% in Australia/New

Zealand, 18% in South Asia, and 12% in North Asia). The third challenge is lower productivity and less

ability to collaborate across departments or functions (13% in Asia/Pacific, 16% in Australia/New

Zealand, 10% in South Asia, and 15% in North Asia).

In this context, it is critical to determine how and what data the organization should collect, manage,

analyze and protect at the beginning of each project. However, these practices — particularly setting

standard rules and key processes — should be established at an enterprisewide level first, and in

accordance to the overall data management strategy, not on an ad hoc basis. Other major trends

impacting organizations' ability to protect, manage and access data (e.g., files, applications, database,

and messaging) across the enterprise are depicted in Figure 2.

FIGURE 2

Trends Impeding Organizations' Ability to Protect, Manage, and Access data

N=600

Source: IDC Asia/Pacific Next-Generation Data Management Survey, 2015

Interestingly, the results for this question remain consistent with the IDC Smart Data Management

Survey, which was conducted in 2014, with minor differences in degree. The exponential growth and

complexity of data, demand for faster and easier data retrieval, and the lack of scalability as data

grows remain the top three trends impacting organizations' ability to protect, manage and access data

in 2015.

These trends and their impact have to be considered in the context of the shift to the 3rd platform.

This shift is particularly important within the context of the APEJ region, which is home some of the

most dynamic and fastest-growing organizations in the world. Some of these businesses have made

tremendous progress in harnessing the use of IT in the organization for multiple reasons, including

reducing the cost of operations and leveraging IT to compensate for lack of available skills. But also, a

key priority has been using disruptive technologies to gain competitive differentiation. According to the

IDC C-Suite Barometer Survey 2015, organizations expect a rebalancing of technology priorities.

Security, which topped the list of technology areas for 2014, has fallen to third place, while mobility

moved further down from second to fourth place. The top technology investment areas for 2015-2016

are cloud, Big Data and analytics, security and data governance, mobility and social media.

Cloud Spurring Need for Better Data Management

There is no denying that many organizations in the Asia/Pacific region have been slower to adopt

cloud services than those in the most mature regions; however, this market is now rapidly evolving.

The expansion and maturity of the cloud as an integral part of IT services delivery is one of the most

important and transformational developments in the market. Buyer sentiment in this region regarding

cloud has changed from "research and explore" to "plan and deploy", so it is no longer a question of

"if", but "what and when". This is a critical change in buyers' behavior and their mindset, since most

organizations either have already deployed some form of cloud, or will be deploying cloud services

within the next 12 months.

While the economic considerations for embracing cloud services are more complex than simply

swiping a credit card (e.g., organizations need to carefully plan server capacity to maximize cost

savings), the agility and capex-friendly nature of cloud–based infrastructures are making cloud a key

consideration for many organizations. More businesses are now migrating some of their IT

infrastructure and application stacks to "as a service" solutions in the public cloud. While others in

highly regulated industries, or those which simply do not consider public cloud as an option, are

moving to private cloud. CIOs who still prefer to maintain their traditional IT infrastructures and are

slower to adopt some form of cloud services will likely end up being dragged into hybrid cloud

environments by their LOB managers, since many business users just want access to new, better and

faster services.

Figure 3 shows cloud distribution workloads in the Asia/Pacific region in 2014 and the intended

distribution in 2016.

FIGURE 3

Cloud Adoption: Distribution of workloads in Asia/Pacific 2014-2016

N=600

Source: IDC Next-Generation Data Management Survey, 2015

Indeed, the storage market has been positively impacted by cloud services on several fronts. The shift

to procurement of storage capacity and storage software functions "as a service", means that users

can now address their growing storage capacity needs, as well as use storage functions such as

backup from a cloud provider and pay a monthly fee for use.

Virtualization plays a fundamental role in the adoption of cloud as a platform or as a storage

environment. Its benefits range from cost savings to business flexibility and agility. However, IT should

ensure that the ease in deployment of new virtual machines (VMs) does not lead to a VM sprawl,

something that would have a negative impact on the time and resources required to manage these

new VMs. At the same time, IT needs to ensure the resilience of these assets is guaranteed by

applying the necessary data protection and retention policies.

On the other hand, while cloud provides significant benefits as a platform or as a storage environment,

organizations should ensure that the right data management policies are used to ensure data

protection, especially in the context of increased compliance requirements.

As depicted in Figure 4, the top three pain points when migrating datasets to the cloud are security-

related. A growing number of organizations are using cloud and find secure, real-time synchronization

of confidential and business critical data to improve efficiency to be the most challenging. This is the

top concern for organizations across the Asia/Pacific region, but also remains consistent in

Australia/New Zealand (32%) and South Asia (21%). What is also similar for all regions are the second

and third challenges, which are to securely accessing company data from outside the office from any

device and to conduct secure and reliable backups and recovery of datasets managed within IaaS or

cloud applications, respectively. The only differences are found in North Asia, where performing a

“global search” for company data across multiple data silos and repositories is considered the primary

pain point, followed by securely accessing company data from outside the office from any device, and

VM backup and recovery (VM sprawl minimization).

FIGURE 4

Top 3 Pain Points When Migrating Datasets into Cloud Environments

N=600

Source: IDC Next Generation Data Management Survey, 2015

Indeed, managing data across virtual and physical infrastructures can pose many challenges for IT

organizations. As a result, organizations should design an information management strategy that

ensures the organization’s data in the cloud is protected and recoverable. For example, a critical

consideration is data availability; but this is not equivalent to data protection. In order to guarantee

uptime, cloud services providers replicate data across multiple zones, something that is critical to

ensure availability of data. However, this does not necessarily guarantee the protection of data, since if

data is corrupted due to human error in one particular location, data may be duplicated to other

locations too. The only way to potentially recover that data would be to run a protection copy instead.

DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING

Adoption of Big Data and analytics (BDA) across Asia/Pacific is accelerating. The most common

objective of BDA initiatives in this region are behavioral profiling and modeling. This is because

organizations are focused on adding more context to their customer data to deliver greater customer

experiences. As a result, the focus is on analyzing customers' preferences, behaviors, and needs, to

better target those customers and personalize their experience. Other areas that are also driving BDA

investment include strategic and operational decision making, operation optimization, and governance,

risk, and compliance (GRC).

However, at a more fundamental level IDC observes the increased focus of organizations is becoming

more data-centric and data-driven. This requires an evolution in the way data is captured, stored,

managed, analyzed and used by the key stakeholders. For example, becoming a data-driven

organization is more than investing in the technology, since this transformation needs to be

complemented with a cultural shift toward analytically oriented decisions and processes. Also, in a

data-driven organization, technical staff should no longer be only focused on managing the

infrastructure, but instead become managers of the data.

Benefits of a Data-Driven Organization

This transformation drives significant benefits. IDC research shows that organizations that are highly

analytical tend to be more competitive within their industry — more than twice as likely to substantially

outperform their peers. Furthermore, managers at the most competitive organizations are two times

more reliant on business analytics (rather than intuition) than managers at their least competitive

peers. This is further confirmed in the 2011 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study titled

Strength in Numbers: How Does Data-Driven Decision Making Affect Firm Performance?, which

showed that data-driven organizations are more profitable and more productive than their competitors.

Data is growing at unprecedented levels for the vast majority of

organizations in Asia/Pacific. This data flood presents a significant

opportunity, since more data can be used to support business

decisions. But only the right information, delivered at the right time and

in the right place, can allow organizations to better manage costs,

make smarter decisions, and react more quickly to changing market

conditions. So it is by combining different data types, technologies,

and analytic techniques that organizations will be able to move toward

fact-based decisions driven by analytics of large and diverse data sets

and therefore enable consistent, compliant, and optimized responses

to business events. Figure 5 shows what data types are being

collected, analyzed as well as integrated in Asia/Pacific organizations.

Only the right information,

delivered at the right time

and in the right place, can

allow organizations to better

manage costs, make smarter

decisions, and react more

quickly to changing market

conditions.

FIGURE 5

Types of Data Collected, Analyzed and Integrated

N=600

Source: IDC Next Generation Data Management Survey, 2015

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS — NEXT-GENERATION DATA MANAGEMENT

Rethinking Data Management — Single Platform Efficiencies

Data management continues to be one of the top IT challenges for organizations across the

Asia/Pacific region, also exacerbated by the trends in Big Data, cloud, mobility, virtualization and IoT,

and the next wave of digital transformation. In this context, there are four critical considerations for IT

managers looking at improving their data management practices:

Data value. Organizations often struggle with having little insight into the size, content and

variety of data that is created and acquired in the different business departments, let alone the

limited visibility on where and how it is stored. However, more importantly, organizations also

need to better understand the value of their data assets. This is because not all data that is

collected or created has business value. Assessing what data is critical for the business can

help improve decision-making processes, since the organization can ensure that critical data

assets can be available to the right stakeholders when required.

Data costs. The lack visibility into the organization's data assets also impacts the ability to

assess the costs derived from capturing, and storing data, especially considering that some

data assets may not have any value for the business. Moreover, identifying redundant copies

of data becomes a very difficult task. This is something that needs to be addressed, since the

adoption of multiple overlapping technologies or point solutions used to protect, share, and

analyze data can result in a tremendous amount of redundant copy.

Data access. Access to critical data assets needs to be ensured regardless of location, size

and data type. Access to data needs to cater for the increasing number of users and mobility

requirements. This also requires a reassessment of access control policies and security.

Data risks. Capturing, storing and analyzing data also creates risks. Data needs to be

efficiently managed, otherwise complexity and risk will only increase, making it more difficult

for organizations to derive value from their critical data assets, or comply with the increasing

policies and regulations. Data needs to be protected and backup/recovery services need to

support both virtual and physical assets.

According to the IDC Next-Generation Data Management Survey 2015, the top data management

challenges have changed compared to those seen in 2014. In 2014, the IDC Smart Data Management

Survey showed that performing a global search for company data across multiple data silos was the

top challenge in the overall Asia/Pacific market (also in ASEAN and North Asia if split by subregions).

However, in 2015, 54% of organizations across Asia/Pacific, as shown in Figure 6, said that the most

challenging data management task is ensuring the secure and real-time synchronization of confidential

and business critical data to improve the efficiency of workforce. This is also consistent in

Australia/New Zealand, where 72% of organizations consider this their top challenge, as well as in

South Asia (68%).

FIGURE 6

The Most Challenging Information Management Tasks

N=600

Source: IDC AP Next-Generation Data Management Survey, 2015

Ensuring real-time synchronization of business critical data is a priority and the top data management

challenge. This is particularly true in the context of cloud, which has created new silos in the enterprise

and further augmented some of the existing ones. The move to hybrid environments drives the need

for on-premises applications to be integrated and its datasets synchronized, something that can

enable employees' access to business critical data anywhere and anytime and become more

productive. The need for agility also implies that this data needs to be synchronized in real time,

providing seamless connectivity across the organization. However, ensuring this becomes also more

challenging with the proliferation of mobile devices and tablets, and the heterogonous IT

environments. Finally, organizations need to focus on guaranteeing real-time flow of data between

different systems but also that data is accurate and consistent.

This challenge is followed by providing secure and reliable backup and recovery of data sets managed

within IaaS or cloud applications, something that is consistent across subregions: Australia/New

Zealand (35%), South Asia (53%) and North Asia (30%). Finally, looking at the overall Asia/Pacific

sample, 30% of organizations claimed that the secure access of company data from outside the office

from any device is also a major challenge. This is particularly relevant in the context of the increasing

mobile workforce to improve its productivity and decision making, while making sure access and

availability to critical business data is not compromised.

Organizations simply cannot overlook the risks and consequences that would likely result if sensitive

data is lost, stolen, compromised or cannot be accessed when required. Data is the most valuable

organization asset, and its availability to business users has to be guaranteed.

Figure 7 depicts Asia/Pacific organizations' priorities when considering purchasing backup and

recovery solutions.

FIGURE 7

Critical Considerations When Selecting Backup and Recovery Solutions

N=600

Source: IDC Asia/Pacific Next-Generation Data Management Survey, 2015

It is clear from IDC's 2015 research that organizations' purchasing considerations remain similar to last

year's survey results, regardless of some of the changes happening in customer environments. The

trends impacting data management are exacerbating organizations' needs for an enterprisewide

strategy.

An effective solution needs to provide backup, replication, snapshots and archiving. Furthermore, it

needs to be able to do that across physical and virtual assets, regardless of where that data resides. At

the same time, the solution has to support all data files, applications, databases and endpoints.

According to the IDC Next-Generation Data Management Survey 2015, 42% of organizations cited the

ability to manage and protect any data, regardless of size and type, as the most important aspect of a

data backup and recovery solution. This is consistent with the 2014 results of the IDC Smart Data

Management Survey, which showed 41% of organizations with the same answer. This comes as no

surprise as the variety of data types (e.g., text, transactional, machine-to-machine/sensor, GPS

location, and social media data) raises concerns around how to effectively manage and protect data

that is created (or resides) outside the firewall, but it can be used to improve decision making.

This year's results further confirm a growing customer requirement. IDC's research indicates that more

organizations are attracted to the potential benefits of using a single unified solution to deal with their

major data management needs. Many organizations today still use disparate point solutions to address

their protection, recovery, and access requirements. This is often the result of non-holistic data

management practices, as well as different service-level agreement (SLA) requirements.

However, the need for centralized visibility into distributed information assets to mitigate risk, improve

decision making, and eDiscovery is driving increased adoption of single platform solutions.

Conversely, this growing trend does not imply that modular approaches are not also being adopted as

entry points into an end-to-end platform as buyer requirements expand. In fact, organizations adopting

a solution to address specific data management needs (e.g., end-point data protection or VM backup

and recovery) may continue to do so. But IDC's research indicates that enterprises will increasingly

look for vendors that can provide modular approaches as entry points, enabling them to enjoy the

benefits of single platform solution architectures as their requirements expand.

This is reflected in the IDC Next Generation Data Management Survey 2015 in which 35% of

organizations in Asia/Pacific stated that the most important aspect of a backup and recovery solution is

to provide end-to-end protection, management and access to all data from a single platform. This was

also consistent across subregions. The subregional split is as follows:

Australia/New Zealand — 50% of organizations said the most important aspects of a data

backup and recovery solution is the ability to manage and protect any data, followed by the

preference for an end-to-end solution that allows protecting, managing and accessing all data

from one single platform (43%). Australia (51%) showed the strongest preference for this

requirement among all Asia/Pacific countries.

South Asia — 37% of organizations, with Thailand followed by Malaysia having the highest

percentage among these group of countries (54%) — also considered the ability to manage and

protect any data as their top requirement, followed closely by end-to-end solutions (31%).

North Asia — 42% of organizations selected the ability to manage and protect any type of data

as their top consideration. Similar to the other regions, they favored end-to-end solutions

(31%) as their second priority, with Hong Kong (42%) showing the strongest preference for

this requirement among these countries.

Other critical considerations like scalability, no impact on client performance, quick return on

investment (ROI) were also highly regarded. Interestingly though, this year demand for ease of use

was higher than in 2014. Undeniably, organizations claimed that their IT environments are becoming

more complex overtime and that some of the solutions they use are often not easy to use and

implement, something that creates a steep learning curve, and additional costs. As evidenced in our

research, demand for natural user interfaces (NUI), and overall simplification of tasks is growing.

To further validate the factors that are driving increased awareness and adoption of end-to-end

solutions and given that this was the second most important factor for a large percentage of

respondents, IDC asked organizations about the most appealing potential benefits expected from this

type of solutions.

FIGURE 8

Top Expected Benefits When Using an End-to-end Platform

Source: IDC Asia/Pacific Next-Generation Data Management Survey, 2015

As depicted in Figure 8, organizations in Asia/Pacific stated that the most appealing potential benefits

of a solution that can enable them to protect, manage and access all data across their organizations

using a single solution would be:

More efficient and reliable disaster recovery (78%). Expectations have shifted slightly this

year, as more organizations see having more efficient and reliable disaster recovery as the

most critical for single platform solutions — this was the third consideration in 2014 (72%).

Today, many organizations do not have adequate protection and recovery policies or tools in

place to manage the ever-increasing volume and variety of data. A single platform with a

centralized backup store for all physical and virtual assets can help organizations assess the

scope of potential information exposure. This also provides greater visibility into existing data

assets and better management of recovery policies.

Increased protection from data loss and leakage (73%). Consolidating all data in a single

virtual repository improves visibility into all organization assets, and therefore reduces the

potential of data loss and leakage.

Improved storage and network optimization and cost savings (68%). A single platform solution

could reduce complexity and administration costs since it enables protection, recovery,

access, and discovery simultaneously (or with one solution).

ROLE OF COMMVAULT

Commvault, headquartered in Tinton Falls, USA, is an innovative provider of data protection and

management software and related services. The company, which was formed in 1988, started its

operations in Asia/Pacific in Australia in 2003. In 2013, after establishing a good presence in some

regional markets moved its regional headquarters (HQ) to Singapore. The establishment of Singapore

as Commvault's regional HQ was not trivial. The company had direct presence in the country, but

wanted to expand its operations further across ASEAN, as well as show that it was committed to

further grow and service its customers in the region.

Over the years, Commvault has gained a strong footprint in various markets in the Asia/Pacific region.

The establishment of its operations in ANZ first provided the company a strong and loyal customer

base, but now its solutions are also seeing strong growth in other markets like ASEAN and North Asia.

Today, the company continues to be focused on aggressively growing their presence and customer

base, as well looking at improving customer support, and placing more research and development

efforts in the region. Commvault also places great focus on its partner ecosystem, which includes

global strategic partnerships like Hitachi Data Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, Microsoft and

NetApp. In addition, Commvault is focused on working with managed services providers (MSPs), a

market segment for which Commvault has specific solutions.

Commvault's solutions has attracted many organizations looking for an integrated solution that can

effectively help them address their ongoing data management requirements. Some of these

organizations include the Singapore Government, the Stock Exchange of Thailand, the National

Institute of Education of Australia, the Australian Federal Department of Treasury, Fonterra, Takaful

Malaysia, Carrefour Taiwan, Vita Group, Consolidated Minerals and Revera.

Commvault’s Integrated Platform and the Solution Sets

Commvault's data protection and management solution, provides organizations with the tools to tightly

integrate backup with other key processes such as snapshots, array-based replication, archive,

eDiscovery, and endpoint protection, as well as with application- and cloud-based recovery.

Commvault's ability to deliver backup, recovery, archive, replication, reporting, and search capabilities

built on a single, modular, common code platform has attracted many customers, particularly large

organizations, facing numerous data management challenges. However, the increased customer

demand for "entry points" into the end-to-end platform, as well as for flexible pricing models, has driven

Commvault to reassess its solution packaging and licensing options. Also, to address the requirement

for solution bundles that are easier to implement and consume, Commvault has added purpose-built

backup appliances (PBBA) to its portfolio of solutions.

In addition, Commvault has introduced solution set packaging options for organizations looking for

standalone products that can address specific data management challenges. These offerings allow

customers to purchase solution sets such as endpoint data protection, virtualization, email archive, or

IntelliSnap integrated snapshot backup as standalone products.

This is particularly important for those organizations that prefer to start small with a functionality and

solution set they need, and ultimately expand to the full platform feature set by adding capabilities as

needed. This significantly lowers the entry price point to this unified data management platform,

providing an attractive option for smaller organizations. The benefits of Commvault’s platform include:

Single console (Single pane of glass). Organizations can view, manage and access all

functions and all enterprise data from a single console.

Unified capabilities across deployment model. The solution unifies data protection, search,

replication, reporting, and archiving across all enterprise tiers, including on-premise, cloud,

and hybrid deployment options.

Integrated backup and archiving. OnePass provides an integrated process for backup, archive

and reporting from a single data collection and common infrastructure. This indexes files and

emails at the first backup, so that data is available for search and restore in just one

repository. Also, with this feature users can design and customize the data they want to retain

and how they want to retain it.

Enhanced deduplication. It provides fourth generation of deduplication technology. This

including both target and source deduplication, and offers parallel deduplication, increasing

deduplication speed for large-scale data environments.

Single data repository. The ContentStore is an access layer that makes the location of files

transparent to the user. As a result, users can access and manage all data regardless of

whether it is stored on primary storage, secondary storage, backup storage, archive storage,

tape, or in the cloud. This provides a scalable, hardware-agnostic, virtual repository that is

combined with its indexing capabilities that supports data protection, archive, and storage

infrastructure reporting operations.

Edge protection. It provides data protection to safeguard distributed laptop and desktop

devices. It supports all the latest Windows, Mac, and Linux systems with the same solution.

The solution provides corporate IT control, processes, search, and monitoring of remote or

mobile IT assets.

One of the key benefits of Commvault’s single platform approach to data management is that it

ensures a complete view into data across applications, devices, operating systems and locations. This

allows for data to be accessed by all users for recovery, reporting, eDiscovery, compliance and

analytics.

CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES

Commvault continues to enjoy strong growth and recognition in the data protection and recovery

market in the Asia/Pacific region. Today more organizations are growing increasingly aware that

legacy data management solutions and processes can’t keep up with their existing and future needs,

and require more efficient and effective approaches.

Also, the pressure in IT to deliver innovation while maintaining the IT costs associated with storage

and management of data assets — including the labor overhead, and maintenance of legacy solutions

— is driving increased awareness and adoption of solutions that can improve the economics, while

solving critical capacity, performance, availability and protection issues.

With 35% of respondents in IDC's Asia/Pacific survey stating that end-to-end protection, management

and access of all data from a single platform is the most important aspect of a backup and recovery

solution, Commvault is well placed to help its enterprise customers address their major data

management challenges. Commvault's ability to deliver backup, recovery, archive, replication,

reporting, and search capabilities on a single, modular, common code platform is one of the core

strengths of Commvault, and also is its ability to solve both new and traditional data management

challenges as customer needs evolve.

Growing customer demand for "entry points" into the end-to-end platform, particularly among midsize

organizations, has driven Commvault to add new packaging and licensing options that are easier to

implement and consume. A good example is the introduction of the PBBA in its portfolio, something

that will be welcomed by those customers looking for solutions that can decrease the time spent

installing, configuring, and maintaining its software assets, particularly organizations with limited IT

skills or those with a preference for hardware-centric approaches.

Also, increasing customer and competitive pressure from point solution vendors with simpler offerings,

has moved Commvault to launch its Solutions Sets to address the needs of those customers that

prefer to start small and build incrementally. IDC believes that this will increase Commvault's

opportunities in the midsize segment; particularly in a region where the number of organizations in this

segment is larger than in other regions, and the appetite of these organizations for innovative solutions

that can deliver tangible results is insatiable.

Admittedly, Commvault is still fighting for brand awareness and recognition in AP, although it has

made significant progress over the past few years. Displacing already deployed solutions in customer

environments has never been easy. However, addressing the growing needs of new and IT hungry

market segments creates newer opportunities that can further accelerate Commvault growth and

expansion in this region.

However, to continue to succeed, Commvault needs to be careful in sending the right message to

customers, and partners with its Solution Sets. This is because for some of those customers and

prospects awareness of the vendor and its capabilities may be limited, and understanding of its value

proposition is unclear. Organizations considering Commvault will find its Solution Sets more palatable,

but the company needs to ensure customers understand how these fit into the integrated platform and

the value that this can bring to their organizations, an approach that has been transformational for

some of its customers. Once again, the right execution will determine Commvault's future success with

these initiatives, with partner enablement and training being a critical component of this.

CONCLUSION

Data is a critical asset for any organization, but in order to be useful it needs to be accurate, secure,

and accessible. This is because an organization's performance and competiveness largely depends on

how effectively it manages and uses its data to improve decision making, and also on its ability to

protect it. Doing so is becoming increasingly challenging, but more imperative than ever before.

Data growth creates opportunities but exacerbates the challenge of shrinking backup windows and

longer backup cycles due to larger volumes. Also, this data deluge within the organization not only

drives higher storage costs, but it can also create additional compliance and financial risks. Thus,

organizations should consider assessing the value of all their data assets, and identifying what data

should be kept and what can be discarded.

Evidently, not all data has the same value for the business. Also, this value is not static and fluctuates

over time. This means that metrics have to be built to define the value of the different data types and

avoid weighting every bit of information with equal importance. Although recovery time objective (RTO)

and recovery point objective (RPO) have been used as key identifiers of mission criticality, RTO and

RPO do not represent the value of the data assets.

Once metrics are defined and data has been classified according to its value to the business, it will

become easier to understand what data can be discarded or moved to lower-cost storage tiers. Data

disposal is a critical issue that every organization needs to consider before the process of data

collection even begins. For example, an organization needs to assess whether there may be

regulatory constraints regarding the privacy and confidentiality or collection and use of certain types of

data. In addition, the organization needs to understand what data will best answer the questions posed

by the business analysts, as well as how data will be collected, stored, and what methods will be used

for analysis. All these considerations should be critical pieces of the organization's data management

strategy. Also, this strategy should be global in nature, instead of operating in silos or departments.

With the right strategy, platform and partner, enterprises will be able to drive greater value from their

data.

IDC believes that Commvault is well positioned to help customers address these data management

challenges. Customers using Commvault's solutions can gain a wide range of advantages beyond

backup and recovery. One of the major benefits resides on its single platform approach to data

management. This ensures a complete view into data across applications, devices, operating systems

and locations, allowing for data to be accessed by all users for recovery, reporting, eDiscovery,

compliance and analytics. Also, Commvault's solutions continue to evolve with expanded functionality

for virtualized environments, globally embedded source deduplication, integrated replication

management, as well as the ability for customers to protect their data from core to cloud.

Organizations considering a solution that can provide access, management and protection of core data

assets should consider Commvault as part of their selection process.

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory

services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology

markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-

based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,100 IDC analysts

provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in

over 110 countries worldwide. For 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients

achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology

media, research, and events company.

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