Virginia Backaitis News & Articles

When there’s disruption in an industry, bold statements are made. And in an era of Big Data, we seem to be hearing them all the time.

Once upon ago in the 1980s, before Microsoft Windows was invented, before IBM introduced the first PC, and more than a decade before Tim Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web, the first version of Oracle database Software went to market. 

God knows people love SharePoint. In fact, if you Google “love SharePoint,” you’ll get 430,00 results. Among them, you’ll see images of t-shirts, teddy bears, coffee mugs and even a few tattoos emblazoned with the phrase “I ♥ SharePoint.” 

Shhh ... don’t tell anyone, but many CIO’s say they’re afraid of Big Data.

Information Management enthusiasts, start your engines!

EMC’s Documentum and Syncplicity will be among the technologies used to turbocharge the Lotus Formula One (F1) team in its quest to win the World championship in 2015.

The first time I heard the term Big Content, I thought “Oh brother, Are Web CMS and ECM vendors actually sticking the word 'Big' in front of 'Content' in an attempt to jump onto the Big Data bandwagon?” 

Larry Ellison must have woken up mighty early this morning (like 5 am PT) to hear what SAP Chairman Hasso Plattner was going to say about SAP HANA, which is being called “the fastest in memory database of all time.” 

Once upon a time ago, Enterprise Content Management Systems (ECM) solutions were groovy. They seemed to be the key that opened the door to the land of opportunity. 

It can’t be easy to call on customers who have a bone (or two) to pick with you. But EMC IIG (a.k.a. Documentum) President Rick Devenuti has spent the last five years doing exactly that … listening to their complaints, apologizing that his predecessor ignored their needs, promising to address their concerns, and asking for their patience while he built solutions that would not only meet their needs but also delight them. 

Choice is a big word in IT today and though it’s commonly used in conversations that center around end-user interfaces, mobile devices and the Cloud, Enterprises need flexible file storage options too.

Documentum migrations and integrations of yesteryear were a major pain in the ass. They took months to perform, they were often problematic, and to say they were pricey is an understatement -- not only did they take the business offline, but they often required months of high-cost consulting.

This may just be a Big Data first. 10Gen, the MongoDB company, is introducing MongoDB Backup Service, a cloud-based solution geared toward its customers who use large data sets.

The convergence of Big Data and Cloud will radically change the Enterprise Computing game. EMC’s Chairman, Joe Tucci, and his lieutenants have been evangelizing on this idea for years, though they’ve used different variations of the words.

Maybe you think that your company’s biggest Big Data problem is the volume, velocity, variety and variability of data coming at it. Structured and unstructured, social and mobile, generated by everything from your car to your camera to the Runkeeper app on your phone (never mind the traditional sources), just thinking about it is enough to cause an anxiety attack. 

Big Data is the new oil, the new gold, the new Californium Isotope … add your own metaphor. You’ve heard it said before, and you’ll hear it said again and again.