Enterprise Grade ain't what it used to be

Every solution is now big enough for the enterprise. Now Enterprise Grade means how well does it handle complexity.

Let’s pick data protection as an example of what I mean by enterprise-grade. Enterprise-grade used to mean how much data I could back up during my backup window. With SSDs in the 61TB and higher range and 400GB or better networking, how much data I can back up is no longer the challenge. These systems have enough performance and metadata capability to backup any sized system in the enterprise.

However, the complexity of my data has significantly changed over the years. That data exists in SaaS, IaaS, on-premises, and co-located systems, as well as a wide range of formats.

The most basic question is, can my data protection system backup the data and consistently apply my policies across all of these data sources? Several other questions, such as recovery point/time objects and recovery location targets, also exist.

The more significant point is that enterprise-grade is no longer about the maxims of speeds and feeds but about integrating into an increasingly complex information technology landscape.