Last month we skipped the introduction to summarize some of the things we hope to bring to you in the coming year. This month we are circling back to our backgrounds in the hopes that this will help explain why we might be suited to fulfill the agenda hinted at last month.

Bruce can be thought of as the storage side of the team, though that is a gross oversimplification. It is no exaggeration to describe Bruce as a noted business leader and consultant in the IT industry; he has acted as chief architect, technologist, and project manager for assignments involving large-scale technology and implementation strategies. He has held the positions of director of technology and business research for the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and director of technology for American International Group. Bruce has been responsible for the architecture, implementation, and management of a worldwide client/server networking infrastructure for a Fortune 10 company, with a platform of over 600 servers connecting 10,000 users across 50 cities throughout North America and offshore. In 1994, he founded NTP Software, a provider of business solutions for Windows NT and other platforms. At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Bruce was recognized as a technology pioneer. This follows a similar award from the National Computer Conference in 1974 where he was honored as a part of the Dartmouth College team that invented computer timesharing. In his role at the helm of NTP Software, Bruce has been a thought leader in the storage resource management space and has authored many whitepapers and articles on subjects touching on both storage and security. Knowing the trends, as well as why they are trends, in storage is key to guiding the discussions that we hope will bring you as well as help you find the answers to the harder questions.  

Hard questions are where security typically enters the picture and Patrick has a long history as a security consultant and has written articles on everything from writing applications that defend themselves to ways to make the hacker pay for coming after your data. Patrick is the Microsoft Regional Director for Boston and the CTO for CriticalSites, a security consultant firm based in New England. Named by Microsoft as a regional director, he has been recognized as a leader in the technology field with an expressed specialization in the field of security. A graduate of West Point and a Gulf War veteran, Patrick brings an uncommon level of dedication to his leadership role at CriticalSites and tends to approach all situations as an infantry commander in the defense. He has experience in addressing business challenges with special emphasis on security issues involving leading-edge database, Web, and hardware systems. In spite of the demands of his management role at CriticalSites, Patrick stays technical and in the trenches, acting as project manager and/or developer/engineer on selected projects throughout the year.

We hope that this introduction shows us as qualified to guide the discussion we hope to provoke in the pages and issues that follow.

In parting, we would like to emphasize that there is a special relationship between security and data as the whole point of security is most often all about protecting the data. As a periodical with both “Information Storage” and “Security” in the title, it makes sense if we start with how these two relate. Data, in all its various forms, is the only thing that matters to a business organization. If a company loses hardware, facilities, even staff, as long as the data still exists to track who customers are and what is owed then the pieces can be picked up. On the other hand, if the data is gone, you’ll find that more often than not, there is no longer a business. Without knowledge of inventory and invoices and payroll, etc., all you really have is infrastructure. You most likely already know this, but it often bears repeating since data provisioning and security often get short shrift due to their illusive nature. The data looks safe and secure mainly because it can’t be seen completely. The best way to avoid this bad habit is to treat data like the asset that it truly is. On the day of this writing, Patrick encountered yet another incident of a company that had set up backups for vital data, but allowed the process to be left unrun for months because no one was checking the details. Examples like this from the real world are compelling and in this issue you should find your fill of solid examples and statistics based on experience. We hope you enjoy this issue and those going forward as we work to bring you the best information for your hardest decisions!