"It's a new world in terms of service providers," says Eric Burgener, Topio's marketing VP. "Clearly, disaster recovery planning is not a theoretical activity anymore."
EVault product manager Zac Shess says smaller businesses count on his service to bring them new technologies. "Trends in the industry help validate things like disk-to-disk backup," he says.
EVault has even brought its service down below midtier companies: It announced this week that it has signed up more than 100 customers for its small business service. EVault marketing VP Dan Brumm says the company expects its fiscal year revenues to double from last year because of the popularity of its offsite backup services.
Security's the sticking point. Like their bigger counterparts, smaller organizations aren't always ready to send their precious data out of house, even if it's for the best of causes. SSPs are responding to these concerns with measures such as advanced encryption algorithms.
"You have to provide specifics on how you can provide security," Burgener says. "It's a challenge, but not nearly as hard to overcome as it was four or five years ago."
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
