As of January 2022, iland is now 11:11 Systems, a managed infrastructure solutions provider at the forefront of cloud, connectivity, and security. For the most up-to-date product information and resources, or if you have further questions, please refer to the 11:11 Systems Success Center or contact us directly.
During 2021 IT teams had to adjust to excessive amounts of change while protecting critical operations from unprecedented threats driven by Covid, natural disasters, supply chain interruptions, and human resource shortages, not to mention newly introduced developments like ransomware, growing data sprawl and hybrid working. In 2022, these developments will continue to make a significant impact on data protection and data management.
In today’s hyper-connected digital economy, it is more important than ever to protect business data from damage, loss, or attack. It is not far from the truth to say the success of every organization now depends on non-stop consistent access to its critical systems and data.
Of course, managing and protecting any organization’s data is no easy task. It is critical to constantly monitor the changing data landscape and be alert to the availability of new tools and challenges. Privacy regulations are continuously changing, and security threats can appear from anywhere around the globe, adding another layer of complexity when managing and protecting data.
What can we expect in 2022?
- Global supply chain issues will create data protection concerns.Supply chain issues are creating significant disruptions in the global economy, with everything from food, cars and appliances to PC processors and toys in short supply. And it is likely that these issues will continue well into 2022. Logistics issues and higher levels of digital risks, such as cyberattacks, will cause further disruptions to the global supply chain in the coming year. In 2021, the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack took down the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S. and temporarily caused fuel shortages up and down the East Coast. The company paid the hackers nearly $5 million in ransom just a day after discovering malware on its systems. This is just one reason that the supply chain will remain a top priority for organizations in 2022. This indicates that any organization will need to be well prepared with data protection solutions to keep the supply chain working and meet the demands of all customers. The bottom line is that organizations will need to ensure that cyberattacks do not further compromise their supply chains and that all data remains available 24/7 with instant recovery.
- The attack area of any organization will continue to expand as ways of working continue to evolve.
An attack area includes all the possible ways an attacker can get into any company’s devices and networks and seize or eliminate data. The minimization of the attack area is critical to success. The problem is that your attack surface is continually growing as more people work remotely on multiple devices. In addition, it has become more difficult to control endpoints as employees leave organizations and retrieving their equipment becomes harder. The bottom line is that breaches will inevitably continue to happen and organizations will have to be better at recognizing breaches so extrication can occur as quickly as possible. Security and recovery strategies must be a focus and also be more complete. As the attack surface expands, those strategies must cover not only on-premises data but data in the cloud, at the edge, and everywhere in between.
- More investment in disaster recovery
Climate changes and social disruptions have created a greater need for disaster recovery to become a major IT focus. DR planning is no longer a matter of considering the rare ‘once in 100 years storm’ or ‘once in a lifetime disaster’’. All types of disasters have become increasingly common threats to business operations. Organizations will increase DR spend in 2022 and look for more flexible deployment options for protection, such as replicating on-premises workloads to the cloud, or use of failover clustering across cloud availability areas and regions.
Organizations will continue to adapt from the reactive “if” or “when” to the reality of “how often” data-related incidents can and will occur. For years, vendors have continually stated, “It’s not if you’ll be breached, it’s when.” In recent years, an increasing number of organizations have experienced multiple incidents in a single year, and the types of incidents are becoming more complex. This is a direct result of the booming data universe, accelerated by the global pandemic and the ever-changing regulations surrounding sensitive data. In 2022, organizations may plan for three to four significant events and will need to plan to minimize the costs and business impacts. More breach management will be brought in-house and organizations will manage data risk much more actively.
The need is even greater in 2022 for disaster recovery along with other cloud solutions. With 85% of organizations forecast to embrace a cloud-first approach by 2025*, the newly-formed 11:11 Systems company answers the market’s call for a single, trusted vendor to navigate security threats and reduce complexities in infrastructure management. 11:11 will continue to be an industry leader providing disaster recovery solutions.
The challenge of data protection is sure to become even more challenging in 2022 and beyond. As organizations store more data across on-premises, cloud, hybrid, and third-party systems — and as data regulations become more prevalent — organizations must stay on top of the changing data landscape or risk failure.
