08
NEWS IN BRIEF
Cloud and Disaster
Recovery Survey reveals
high levels of data loss and
downtime
Nearly one-third of organisations (30%) said they had lost
data as a result of a data centre outage in the past year,
while more than four in ten (42%) said they had experienced
a period of downtime. That’s according to a new survey
conducted by Unitrends, which polled more than 400
respondents from organisations of all sizes and industries
about the challenges and trends that IT departments and
admins face when protecting data from downtime and
disasters.
According to the survey, well over half (58%) of
respondents said they had to recover at least some of their
data from the cloud at least once last year, while 11% in
total had to recover data from the cloud five times or more.
Surprisingly, however, more than half of respondents (55%)
said they tested their data recovery capabilities once a year
or less.
More positively, the Unitrends research paints a picture
of the growing use of cloud in data protection strategies.
The survey found 61% of small (1 – 50 employees), 58% of
mid-sized (51 – 1000) and 60% of large organisations use the
cloud as part of their data protection.
Archive/long-term retention topped the list of uses of cloud
for data protection, with 61% of the sample referencing it,
followed by ‘host disaster recovery as a service (DraaS) and
business continuity’ (44%) and ‘store files short term’ (35%).
The future continues to look bright for the cloud. Of the
40% of organisations not currently using the cloud for data
protection, 53% of them plan to adopt it within the next year.
If these plans hold true, it's estimated that by 2020, 80% of
all organisations, regardless of size, will be using the cloud for
some form of data protection. n
Verne Global joins NVIDIA
DGX-Ready Data Center
Program as HPC & AI
Colocation Partner
Verne Global, a provider of advanced data centre solutions for
high-performance computing (HPC), has joined the NVIDIA DGX-
Ready Data Center Program as a certified colocation partner.
Enterprises and research organisations seeking to leverage the
NVIDIA DGX-2 System – the world’s most powerful AI system
– now have the option to deploy their AI infrastructure using a
cost-effective Op-Ex solution in Verne Global’s HPC-optimised
campus in Iceland, which utilises 100% renewable energy and
relies on one of the world’s most reliable and affordable power
grids.
The DGX-2 System – the world’s first two petaflop system – is
the platform of choice for tackling the world’s most complex
AI challenges, including complex deep neural networks that
were previously untrainable. Verne Global has been selected to
join the NVIDIA DGX-Ready Data Center Program following a
rigorous certification process to assess its ability to provide the
high specification hosting environment required for this complex,
high-density system.
Verne Global’s track record for delivering TrueHPC solutions
at an industrial scale was also a key factor in its certification.
Its TrueHPC approach focuses on providing accessible,
flexible, optimised and highly-efficient data centre services
to its customers, enabling them to benefit from genuine HPC
processing power and speed.
“The NVIDIA DGX-2 System is a complete game changer
for any organisation that wants to accelerate and improve the
accuracy of its AI-driven research programs, but it does require
a specialist, highly-optimised data centre environment,” said
Bob Fletcher, Vice President of Strategy at Verne Global. “We are
delighted to be part of NVIDIA’s initiative to make it quicker and
easier for these organisations to deploy artificial intelligence at
scale.” n