Virtualworks - Ebook

Content VirtualizationA new approach to solving enterprise data sprawl

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A VirtualWorks eBook

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Data Sprawl overtakes the enterprise

Introduction

There’s been a ten-fold increase in data stored by enterprises over the last five years (2006-2011).Source: IDC

If information is the lifeblood of any enterprise, then today’s enterprises are bleeding badly.

The data that used to live in structured warehouses and databases is now buried in emails, file servers, intranet sites, scanned files and hard drives.

Some of it lives inside document management systems but most is out there in the wild – not just behind the firewall but out in the cloud as well. Software-as-a-Service and utility computing are only increasing the data chaos. Today, data lives in hundreds of silos.

And it’s only going to get worse. As storage costs continue to drop, the need for data discipline disappears. Virtual servers and desktops add a layer of complexity. And mobile apps – many of them running on employee-owned devices – not only create even more data, but also add to the difficulty of securing corporate information.

In short: this is the age of Data Sprawl. And the penalties are very real.


Half of all organizations that have moved to the cloud are now transitioning back to on-premise solutions because of data integration issues.Source: Gartner

Every enterprise suffers from the chaotic state of enterprise data in these ways:

• Poorly-informed decisions – because the most timely, relevant content is not being used.

• Slower decision-making – with time wasted looking for the right data.

• Productivity loss – with knowledge workers spending more time looking for information instead of adding value.

• Slower return on application investments – with data locked inside application silos.

• Security holes – with sensitive data atomised throughout the enterprise (the explosion in mobile data in particular escalates compliance and security risk).

• A massive IT burden – as resources are wasted on trying to control, secure and manage data.

Even the best-managed companies with the tightest information governance practices are paying the price of data sprawl every day. On the road to the real-time enterprise, data sprawl may be the single biggest obstacle.

Every IT professional knows it’s a problem but very few can see a way around it.

The cost of data sprawl


“ For every 5-10 employees, there is one application, generating copies of the same files everywhere, which in turn, leads to massive amounts of duplicate data strewn all across underutilized storage systems.” Michael Vizard, ITBusinessEdge.com, March 2011


If lack of structure was the problem, the answer must be more structure, in the form of:

Data warehousesMassive, centralized data stores that were meant to replace the hundreds of silos.

Document management systemsExtensive (and expensive) knowledge management stores with pre-structured data schema and intensive meta-data rules.

Data governance initiativesNew rules, policies and processes designed to enforce better data hygiene practices.

First generation enterprise search Too centralized, too hierarchical and too insecure for the way data lives.

Unfortunately, while each of these attempts delivered some benefits, none of them solved the problem. Data continues to pour out of every corporate crevice, lurking in odd nooks and crannies and defying structure.

One reason may be the futility of trying to get users to change their behaviors. Another might be the sheer scale of the problem: the volume of data; the number of applications silos, servers and stores; and the many different locations for these silos – in the cloud and behind the firewall.

There has to be a better way.

The first (failed) attempts at a solution: too much structure.

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There’s a new model for managing data sprawl that’s changing the way enterprises think about information.

It’s called Content Virtualization and, as the name implies, it’s based on the ideas that have made other kinds of virtualization so popular: resources on demand, distributed architectures and agile infrastructures.

Content Virtualization promises to transform information management without ripping out existing resources, without massive investment in new data stores, and without asking users to change behavior.

But before we dive into the specifics of Content Virtualization, let’s zoom out and put it in a bit of context…

Content VirtualizationA better way

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Virtualization is simply separating a software layer from the underlying hardware in order to optimize resources, drive down costs and increase flexibility.

In the 1990s, virtualization was first used to simulate end-user environments on a single mainframe. It might have remained a mainframe artefact if not for the server proliferation that characterized the latter part of that decade.

Virtualization defined

The first two ages virtualization

Virtualization has swept through enterprise IT, progressing in two big waves:

I. Virtualization in the data centerIncluding server virtualization and storage virtualization – both of which delivered dramatic improvements in resource utilization, cost, energy use, footprint and flexibility.

II. Virtualization of the desktopIncluding operating system, desktop and application virtualization to make provisioning of new desktops easier and cheaper and secure access to corporate resources simpler. The ‘one user, one desktop, one app’ model is coming to an end.

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“ Virtualization continues to demonstrate additional tangible benefits the more it’s used, broadening its value to the enterprise at each step.” CIO.com

Today, as CIO.com puts it, “The industry buzz around virtualization is just short of deafening.” And for good reason:

The benefits

All of the different forms and flavors of virtualization deliver a similar set of benefits:

Cost savings – through resource optimization

Flexibility – from an abstraction layer rather than hard-wiring

Scalability – ramping up resources on demand

Agility – the ability to change strategy and direction quickly

Manageability – setting administrators free from managing one physical resource at a time.

An additional benefit: in the old physical world one result of server and storage limitations was the capping of data sprawl. Virtualization introduces a new way of managing it.

The beneficiaries: IT

In both virtualization waves, the IT department was the primary driver and beneficiary of virtualization.

For the user, virtualization was at best invisible and, at worst, a new level of complexity and confusion. As virtualization progresses, user experience tends to be a last consideration.

Virtualization defined(continued)

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Content Virtualization is the logical extension of the virtualization boom – and might be the first virtualization technology to focus squarely on delivering hard benefits to the end user, right alongside IT department benefits.

A quick definition:

Content Virtualization separates and abstracts content from the underlying physical data silos, capturing it in a secure common index for improved access, availability and security, It gives users immediate access to their data regardless of its location.

Makes sense.

The third wave

Introducing Content Virtualization


The importance of OCR

A lot of enterprise content assets exist in

scanned files and text-rich image files such

as CAD drawings. To be able to access

and index this, a content virtualization

solution needs powerful Optical Character

Recognition functionality. OCR can

recognize and index even the tiniest caption

in a scanned file attached to an email and

make it available and accessible.

So, the ‘big four’ principles of content virtualization are to

1. Find all informationDiscover data wherever it lives, across hundreds of applications, servers, intranet sites, email and file stores – in the cloud, in the data center and across all local drives.

2. Index everythingIdentify and list all data in the enterprise making it easy to index everything in a central or virtualized cluster of indexes.

3. Secure accessUse existing security schema (such as Active Directory) to associate each piece of content with its access privileges, so only authorized users can see it.

4. Leverage Make all content available to authorized users and to a new generation of index-enabled applications, on-demand.

How Content Virtualization works


Other approaches to managing data sprawl have created as many obstacles to end user productivity as they have tried to solve. Content virtualization aims to transform an end user’s relationship with corporate IT, putting their needs first

Non-disruptiveLeaves all data where it lives

Index everythingOrganizes and indexes all your data using a common index structure.

Any ApplicationFinds and indexes the data inside of any application, database or file store –ideally without having to hard-wire integrations for each and every application. That means understanding a huge range of file types as well as context and meaning.

Any LocationContent virtualization has to embrace data wherever it lives, behind the firewall, out in the cloud or anywhere in-between. And if data moves, the solution needs to move with it.

Any Security SchemaContent virtualization needs to adapt to the enterprise’s chosen security authorization model, so users only access what they’re authorized to see. Trying to impose a new security infrastructure on the indexed content would create unnecessary overhead and a new point of failure.

Any ClientThe content virtualization solution needs to support all possible client devices, whether physical, virtual, distributed or mobile. Any index-enabled application should be able to make the most of the native features of Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and beyond.

The principles of Content Virtualization


The most important benefits of content virtualization are the benefits delivered to users and to the business in general. These fall into four clusters:

Agility

• Faster, more informed decision making – a critical part of any real-time enterprise

• A holistic view of content assets including structured and unstructured data

Productivity

• Less time wasted trying to find the content needed

• One-stop access – giving authorized users instant and secure access to relevant content

Efficiency

• Get more value from your existing knowledge systems – including document management systems, intranets and beyond

• Forego investment in data warehouses and let content virtualization manage the content

Simplicity

• Unify the enterprise content universe – with all applications and content working as one content system

• Give users a federated content experience across all content stores – including intranets, email and file stores and any local, remote, virtualized, hosted or cloud application

The benefits of Content Virtualization

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Introduction

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“ If only HP knew what HP knows we would be three times more productive.”Lew Platt, Former CEO of Hewlett-Packard


VirtualWorks has been set up to address the challenge of content virtualization. VIA is the world’s first comprehensive content virtualization architecture for enterprises of all sizes.

It solves the data sprawl problem by inserting a virtual content layer above every application and data silo, making a secure index available to authorized users so they can make the right decisions at the right time.

Introducing VIA: The Virtual Index Architecture


VIA is architected specifically to address the challenges posed by data sprawl in the enterprise through a layered architecture that makes extensive use of Cross-Indexers and Plug-ins.

Cross-Indexers embrace new applications

VIA uses standardized, pre-integrated Cross-Indexers to plug any SQL-based application into the Indexing Engine with no heavy integration or coding.

Cross-Indexers are designed to access all data inside an application and interpret the context of that data to facilitate accurate indexing.

The Cross-Indexer library already covers major commercial applications, such as SharePoint, Exchange, Notes, file servers, document management systems and popular cloud apps. And new Cross-Indexers can be created quickly and easily by VirtualWorks.

Security plug-ins

Because it’s service-oriented and based on a content virtualization model, VIA is designed to adapt to the enterprise’s chosen security authorization model, using simple, fully integrated security plug-ins.

This extensible approach embraces new security schema as they emerge, without expensive re-integration. An enterprise might plug in Active Directory today without precluding the next generation of security.

(continued)

Introducing VIA: The Virtual Index Architecture

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Because it’s a light, modular solution that uses Cross-Indexers, enterprises can start their content virtualization journey by cross-indexing any two applications – SharePoint and Exchange for example – then plug in more applications and data sources as they grow.

Deploy fast, scale even faster

• Deploy in days and deliver value to users in the first week

• Start with any two content stores or applications and expand as you go

• Scale to include every intranet site, file store and SQL-based application hosted on premise or in the cloud

• Access all data, no matter where users put it, with an agile content virtualization model

And do it all without expensive and time-consuming integration.

Start anywhere

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Indexed-enabled Applications

A trusted content virtualization solution

opens up a new world of applications,

allowing users and administrators to do

new things with data:

• Find it – using next-generation enterprise search

• Secure it – based on total visibility

• Inventory it – to make better resourcing decisions

• De-dupe it – to improve data quality enterprise-wide

• Manage it – optimizing your content infrastructure

• Learn about it – gaining insight into the use of knowledge within the enterprise

Content virtualization lets enterprises attack some of their most pressing information challenges and seize new opportunities. Some examples:

Manage unstructured files and email serversInstantly and securely access millions of files, emails and attachments – even in the cloud.

Go paperlessIndex all scanned files (with powerful OCR), and make it instantly visible to the people who need it.

Empower SharePoint® and Notes®

Index all the information locked inside multiple SharePoint or Notes systems to make it accessible to all authorized users. The Indexed IntranetIndex the intranet and users will find what they need, instantly – and come back for more.

Real-world document managementMake document management system user-proof – or skip the DMS entirely and index all content instead.

VIA in actionThe power of content virtualization

Because it’s open and based on plug-ins,

VIA makes it easy for VirtualWorks and

our partners to build a new library of index-

enabled applications that leverage the

power of enterprise information. At the

same time, by marshalling and managing

information more effectively, we can

deliver a better return on knowledge,

a key differentiator for business in the

information age

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Virtualization has already transformed enterprise IT – now content virtualization is set to transform the way that users inside enterprises can harness the content they need to make better decisions, in real time, based on the right information regardless of where it lives.

It’s all about helping knowledge workers:

Make better decisions with the right information at the right time

Make faster decisions minimizing access and retrieval time

Get more value from every application by unlocking the data inside

Boost productivity spending less time hunting and more time adding value

It also helps IT departments do their jobs better, making it easier to:

Secure all content so users see only what they’re authorized to see

Lighten the data management burden by leaving data where it is, but discovering and indexing it for use

Unite all content stores – whether in the cloud, the data center or any server or storage system in-between.

Let the data sprawl.

Content virtualization dramatically mitigates the downside of data sprawl. For the first time, enterprises can let data stay wherever users want it to be without losing its value to the entire organization.

Conclusion

As applications continue to proliferate, more data moves into the cloud and more knowledge workers mobilize their content assets, the need for content virtualization has never been greater.

At VirtualWorks, we’re extremely excited about the potential of this new model. And we welcome the opportunity to introduce you to it.


“ Virtualization is no longer just about server consolidation… In virtualized environments, it’s easier to move things around, to encapsulate, to archive and to optimize.” CIO.com

“ I’m as excited about content virtualization as I was about the first wave of virtualization when we founded Citrix. This is a major paradigm shift without the major disruption.” Ed Iacobucci, Founder of Citrix and VirtualWorks

About VirtualWorksVirtualWorks was founded to solve data sprawl by redefining enterprise information architectures. The company has developed a lightweight Virtual Index Architecture for understanding and tracking content across disparate applications and data stores. The company’s technology is used by more than 30,000 people across 300 private and public sector organizations to unleash the power of information no matter where it resides.

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Tel: + 47 48 31 08 00

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Tel: + 46 70 543 7700

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