Name: The 7-Pillar Framework Every IT Leader Needs to Master Now
Uploaded: 2025-12-04T19:16:21.279Z
Duration: 1 h 3 min 4 s
Description: The 7-Pillar Framework Every IT Leader Needs to Master Now

Transcript for "The 7-Pillar Framework Every IT Leader Needs to Master Now": Hello, everybody. How are you today? Thank you very much for joining us. And, during this session, here, we're calling the seven pillars to that every IT leader needs to master now. We really appreciate you joining us today. Before we get started, I want to go ahead and, point out, for those of you that are just joining, on the right side of your screen, you're going to see a, there's a chat dialogue in the top right. You're also going to see a poll area where we've got actually, we have a poll running now, and we'd love for you to to, go ahead and respond that and let us know your thoughts. You will also see a docs tab, and this is where there are materials related to this session that you can download at at your leisure. So we encourage you to do so. And, and then there's a q and a tab. Now you, can ask questions during the course of this. We will try to have time at the end to answer those. Obviously, we can won't be able to do it probably live during the session, but, you know, we'll see how it goes. So feel free to, you know, answer your ask your questions there, and then we'll get through them either at the end of this or following up to you directly. So, so, first of all, let me, just say thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Lance Shaw, and, I am joined by the legendary Ken Cliferton from from DCIG. Ken, do you want to, go ahead and and introduce yourself? Great. Yes. I I serve as a principal researcher at DCIG. Been, part of the team for about twelve years now and led this research into unstructured data management. And I'm really excited, to share some of those results with you and and how Nasuni, lines up, with those, seven pillars of unstructured data management. Yeah. And, Ken, I, I I really appreciate that DCIG has done this research. It's it's interesting because it really aligns to a lot of the feedback we've been getting from customers of Nasuni, and so I'm really fast interested in I've been fascinating to get your your take on this is what is really seems to be an emerging space. You know, that that's something that is, you know, we're we're we're seeing a fair amount of interest in. And, so this is very timely. Today, folks, we are gonna be you know, we're talking about, unstructured data management, and, DCIG has done a has recently published a paper, which is available to you here as well, in regards to the seven pillars that are required for successful unstructured data management. So and we're gonna get into what that means, and and some of the background. And and, really, at the end of the day, you know, the reason you're here, the reason you're taking time out of your busy day is to learn about this area and what you can do and how you can take advantage of this technology and this way of thinking to better your business. Right? So that otherwise, you know, it's not it you gotta, you know, have some nice takeaways and think about how you manage your unstructured data going forward across your entire business. So with that, Ken and I are going to, we're gonna have a little bit of a conversation. I'm gonna ask Ken some questions. Ken's gonna ask me some questions. But let's start out, Ken. Hey, Ben. Hello. Welcome from Arkansas. Glad you're here. The, Ken, I wanna ask you. You know? So Yeah. listen. Give given your focus, given DCIG's focus on data center technology. Right? DC and DCIG. is data data center. Right? So it's in your name. Right? So let's talk about the background. What drove the decision, right. at DCIG to conduct this research into unstructured data management? Great. Well well, over the last several years, DCIG has published more than 10 DCIG top five reports on various aspects of unstructured data management. Most of them focused around, you know, data protection, backup target appliances, or, cyber resilience. And in the process of doing our research, we realized there's actually a fair bit of confusion in the marketplace about, you know, what all does unstructured data management include and constitute. And as we talked with various solution providers, that identify themselves as participating in this space, They still use different definitions for what that is, you know, and some very narrowly focused and some very, very broad. And so, and as a really advocate for the IT department, at organizations, So how do we make sense of this space? And, so we began this research, actually, in earnest, back in April, and I talked with 17 different solution providers, Wow. evaluated, you know, their view of the marketplace, what are their capabilities, and and then we, brought that all together, and tried to figure out and took multiple approaches to how do we present this in a way that will be memorable and useful to enterprise, IT and business leaders in evaluating where they are in terms of managing the data that, they've collected. And we ultimately landed on, the seven pillars framework for them. We tried, you know, four four way bar charts and all kinds of stuff. Yeah. But, the pillars is the thing we think will be useful to folks, to actually identify, the gaps in their unstructured data management practices and then be able to know then where do we need solutions to fill those gaps. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I I've read I've read I've read the report, which I know it just came out, what, just a few weeks ago. Right? The, and it's it's the most thorough write up I've seen on unstructured data management out there, and so I compliment you on that is because it is a it's interesting you say, different people look at it differently. So that's you know, right right. away, it's like, wait a second. Can I have an unbiased approach to what this is? Help me understand. Right? So if any two any new terminology, any new technology space, you know, what can I get out of this? I I need to understand this, and I but I don't wanna hear just, you know, a a a biased or twisted perspective. I want the I want the unfiltered general overview, and so I appreciate that you've done that. I think, you. yeah, no. It's it's actually very good. So I that that by the way, that's, that's an unsolicited plug. Be sure be sure to go to the doc section and download it and judge for yourself, everybody. So a little follow-up on that, Ken. You know, so from your perspective, I mean, so what's changed in the environment in the IT environment over the last few years that makes unstructured data management? I'm hearing about it a lot. lately, and, and. and, I don't think I'm alone in that. I think that's why a lot of people are here today is that, you know, what has made that a a sort of a c suite topic instead of just, oh, it's just another way of thinking about storage? Right. And and something beyond the IT department. Frankly, Right. for. many organizations, cyber resilience, ransomware. You know, the threat landscape keeps getting more and more dangerous for organizations, and the impact on business resilience and business reputation and cost of doing business are all very significant. And and, you know, in executive suites, I mean, this is a topic of conversation for sure. You know, how do we protect ourselves from the bad guys? How do we keep our intellectual property protected from those who would wanna steal it? How do we keep the data we need to run our business available to us, and to those who leverage our services? You know? And so so much of IT now is customer facing. You know? Back in the day when I was IT manager at first, you know, all of our systems were really for internal users. And if there is an issue, yes, it would affect our staff, but our customers wouldn't necessarily see it, at least not immediately. But that's very. different now. You know, so many organizations, it directly affects the customer, access to your organization and your services. So it's it's a operational and kinda business continuity, per you know, imperative. And then, I know of many instances where, whole systems, for example, medical systems, have been down with with critical systems for weeks after a ransomware incident. I mean, where. they couldn't schedule cancer treatments. I mean, life threatening kind of things. So it's it's risen. That's the the number one driver, I think. But there are also significant others. Exploding data growth, which will just be exacerbated, by, the adoption of AI in many enterprises. Many expect that more than half the new data they generate this next year is gonna come from their AI implementations. AI doesn't just consume data. It produces data that. needs, to. be managed. So, Yeah. that's significant. And and so, yes, AI and analytics initiatives, business are trying to derive more value from the data that they do, collect. And then, also just with that exploding data growth, you get what do you think about is whack a mole, performance and capacity issues. You know, as that data, you know, expands all of a sudden, the network bandwidth you had that was sufficient no longer is. The storage capacity you had was sufficient, no longer is. So you reach the limits of the storage systems you have. So you end up as okay. Now we have to buy another storage system, to just for capacity purposes or for performance purposes. And we can no longer share this resource that needs to be dedicated to, you know, these uses. So all those are, I think, the three primary drivers, cyber resilience, exploding data growth, and then AI and analytics initiatives. Yeah. Yeah. I can definitely about you, can see that. Lance, from your interactions? Oh, I would you know, if I was to flip that on its head and and what we what we're seeing one of the big drivers for you, I'd I'd absolutely agree around the resilience perspective, but I think it ties into to AI. So your your point your point about, AI generating content, I was just talking with another customer yesterday, and then when that topic came up, it's like, we we're we're already seeing data growth that we always know that unstructured data keeps growing and growing, and it's just gonna keep on doing so. People people produce content. But now we have a whole new audience, inside an organization. There's an audience. It's the robots. Right? Whatever. It's the AI. It's AI. Oh, sure. Right? It's. generating content. I'm using it, obviously, as user, but it's generating content. And and as we get into agentic AI, that's simply gonna. exponentially continue. So I think the, the feedback, you know, that that that that we're getting, you know, here at Nasuni around UDM and why it's a c suite topic is, yes, it is resilience, of course, and growth, but it's really a lot of it is driven by AI. Right? And not only that content growth, but they need to classify and understand your data, curate the data, and know exactly what is being used for AI and what is not. Because. we because it's the it's the it's the classic we've all heard in a million times. It's the data quality. If you're if you don't have data quality and you don't have data accuracy and data freshness, you don't really have an AI strategy at all. You're just pretending. Right. So you're using old data and gonna have wrong wrong results. Right? So I think that's that's maybe the big driver there. Very good. Yeah. And and and I think that's and then, Ken, you know, just to follow-up on that, that's what drove from a from a vendor, you know, from the Nasuni perspective here. on this on this webinar. You know, that's what has driven us to focus on unstructured data management. Right? Customers are asking, hey. I need x, y, and z. I need to be able to curate my data more effectively. And so I probably will get into this a little bit more during the course of the webinar, but that's really behind the the the drivers for us as a as an organization and as a as a producer of, unstructured data management and, you know, Yes. file sharing technology to really address those needs and and the growth in the industry. Yep. Very good. Very good. So let me ask you a question since I think it's. my turn. Okay. Alright. So, we have a lot of people on the call today, and, you know, listen. There. are a a variety a variety of, I'm sure, different skill sets and backgrounds and everything. How should how should nontechnical executives, maybe it's not us per se, but maybe it's our bosses or. our bosses' bosses, what? How should they think about, you know, the relationship between unstructured data and AI initiatives and and sort of the resilience you mentioned as well? How do they need to be thinking about this? Very good. Well, first of all, unstructured data, what is it? I haven't really talked about that, yet. it's Emails, good. documents, Yeah. audio files, video files, social media posts, all kind of transaction information, can be included in that. The the all that that constitutes really a majority of the data that organizations are managing and the majority a vast majority of the growth in data, as we move. forward, and it all holds significant potential value to the business, with insights driven from AI. And, of course, AI initiatives leverage that data to you can do automation of processes. You can enhance decision making, create new revenue streams, you know, more dollars coming into the organization based on analysis of that data. And so. that that's improved product development, customer service, you know, key key factors, to the success of the business. And. so integrating AI with unstructured data directly contributes to business resilience, business success. You know, again, new revenue, protecting existing revenues, making your customers happy, serving your customers better through that analysis of the data. And you can optimize operational efficiency. There are lots of ways organizations are doing that. Again, Yeah. leveraging the data that that previously they captured, maybe video surveillance data. They needed it for security purposes. And now they're finding with AI, they can drive improvements to the business. Thinking in retail operations, for example, of of measuring dwell time in front of a display. You know, how effective is that new display we did? No. Literally, you know, how many how how what percentage of people reached and picked up the product, that kind of thing. All those can be driven through this unstructured data that just wasn't possible before. You're you're making me read be able to see the data. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta be able to see it in data. You're not I mean, you're not gonna sit there and watch all the video yourself? Yeah. Probably not. I yeah. You're making me rethink my visit to Macy's or anything like that. I'm being watched. So you listen. So let's let's you you kinda define. what unstructured data is. How do you. define unstructured data management as a category itself? I mean, what are the key capabilities that any serious. UDM platform has to have, you know, beyond the traditional file services, you know, the backup and recovery solutions. And I'm when I I'm asking you that, but I'm also gonna bring up one of your diagrams right now so we can. talk through that. do. And that's really we were the question we were trying to answer when we first started this research. You know, what all is included or should be considered when you look think about managing that unstructured data? And, ultimately, again, we came to the seven pillars approach. Again, of seven things, usually people can kind of manage that number of things in memory, keep those things there. In this diagram, I'll point out a couple of things. They're foundational elements. Some unstructured animated data management solutions provide one or more of these elements. Others, in a purely software approach, address the pillars themselves without addressing the foundational elements. But to be successful with unstructured data management, you must address as an enterprise, those foundational elements. Scalable network storage. You know, do you have the capacity and the performance to drive, the usage of the data that you wanna see? Reliable network connectivity, when and where it's needed, to, again, allow applications and your customers to access the data. And then fundamental security measures. You've got to protect the data that you've got under management, both making it accessible, but but still protecting it, appropriately. And especially that involves around things like, you know, data security, data encryption, those kinds of things, access controls. And and so the seven pillars, just to quickly run through them, you've got, the first four we consider foundational. Every organization has to have some level of capability of these things, of data collection and ingestion, storage optimization and archiving, data access and security, and then data preservation and resilience, you know, the data protection side of things. Then the final three pillars are a little more contextual. It depends on, you know, the vertical in which the the organization operates. It's legal framework, but some levels of data cataloging and discovery, governance and compliance, and then data movement and orchestration. And these become more and more challenging as the volume of data that you have under management grows. So, it becomes a pain point that begins to get executive attention as data volumes grow, often, you know, beyond the capabilities of your traditional infrastructure, solutions. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I'm sort of imagining that, you know, within the audience that's joined us here today and and or. for those of you that are watching, if we're on demand later on, you know, the the the mid oftentimes, you know, it's, it's easy to still treat unstructured data as a capacity problem. You know, it's just you know what? We got yeah. Data's growing fine. Buy more buy more shares. Buy more buy more storage. Right? Whatever that form. may take. Because you know what? That's the easiest and the known path sometimes, and and, you know, we're all human beings, and we have lots going on in our lives. And and, it's That's, right. well, let's let's just keep on keeping on. Right? We'll kick that can down the road. But but what risks do you see when you're talking to organizations, you know, Sure. that are doing that? Well, if they stay in that. mode, right, as. their the data volumes are increasing and their AI initiatives are getting underway or are underway for many of us, Mhmm. and they start to really accelerate, what what what is the risk in just getting into that in that mindset of just buying more storage as you go? There are a bunch of them, but it all starts with a fractured data environment. You have these multiple silos of data, based on the storage architecture of of your various solutions, which. gives rising costs and organizational inefficiencies. It can negatively impact accessibility of your data. Security as well. Multiple systems, am I each one may have a different profile and set of vulnerabilities. You've got to keep track of all of those then if you've got these multiple storage silos. And and data protection, you know, are my data protection policies gonna be applied evenly across these various systems? If I'm tracking everything in a spreadsheet, there's a good chance something can fall through the cracks, and and, that's. a problem. And and then and then, you know, recovering data. You've gotta be able to see the data to manage it and and then to protect it and recover it. And, again, as that proliferation happens of multiple storage silos and and data silos, it it becomes more and more complex, more and more error prone, and the likelihood of missing something, grows. And when it comes to leveraging the data, if you can't bring it all together in under a single management framework, then now you've got delayed time to insight. You've got to somehow then extract the data from these multiple systems, any project. And I've worked on projects like that, where, you know, we're bringing together five systems that never talked to one another before. And. it was challenging. It took months, to get that, insight. So delayed, time to insight because of manual collection processes and integrations, then that leads to incomplete decision context. When you're trying executive teams, you're making decisions. You don't have all the relevant data available to you because it's not available to your processes. Shadow IT proliferation. You know? I need to make these decisions. I need that data, so I'm gonna find a way to get it, which may not, be. actually well managed. And you may end up with, again, another storage silo that IT doesn't even know about. You know, that, oh, there's there's a new business process out there that we don't even know exists, but it exists because we weren't able to provide what the enterprise, the business, leaders needed in a timely fashion. And then you run into your architectural scaling limits, all along the way. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that that we we we encounter that. A lot of customers have moved to Nasuni, that's off that's one of the reasons that they moved to Nasuni is because of that, you know, getting getting over their, their limitations, whatever those might be, whether they be resilient. resilience oriented, whether they be capacity oriented, that sort of thing. I mean, you're now you're really getting to how these these seven pillars of UDM sort of change the conversation, though. Right? They're, like, you know, thinking about unstructured data management as a strategic. asset. Uh-huh. Is that is that what you're seeing where people are really sort it's sort of a mind shift in in how you think about file storage. Is that a true statement? I think so. I mean and, really, the goal was to provide with this framework a mechanism to enable systematic evaluation and then implementation of, unstructured data management, managing the data in a way that is comprehensive to, you know, being a more proactive approach to your data. And rather than reactive to overrunning it to, you know, more capacity or performance barriers, it's it's about strategic management to position your data to, again, drive more value for the organization as well as reduce costs. You know, Yeah. but it's it's around driving that value. And so organizations who implement the framework should achieve a number of significant results, improved decision making because the data is gonna be available to them to enable their decision processes, enhanced innovation velocity. We can make decisions faster when we actually have access to the data that's necessary. And and for, like, AI initiatives, yes. We can expose the data, the appropriate data, to, the whatever the AI implementation is that you're doing, without needing to jump through a whole bunch of, hoops and doing data extractions and all. We can just give them direct access to the data. And then, of course, competitive advantage. Superior insight gives you an advantage over your competitors and a marketing edge. And then better risk management. You. if you have a single unified framework and access to manage the data, then you can know that your policies are consistently being implemented across all of the data, not just, you know, hit and miss kind of things. Right. Right. Right. You you missed the data silo off in, some other location. They're they're they're doing something else entirely different, and people have access to data they maybe they shouldn't have or it's different from what what other locations, that sort of thing. You you're totally right. You know, Ken, you just said the the the AI word, and, Mhmm. you know, so. I mean, we all we're all in IT. You know, you can't throw a rock without, talking about AI these days, and and for good reason. True. I mean, it's understandable. That's right. So you listen. You took a look at Nasuni with this Mhmm. framework in mind. Right? In fact, everybody, Indeed. I did. that's here, take a look at the docs tab, and there's a, the Nasuni solution profile that DCIG is part of their analysis of what Nasuni does so that this would be relevant to you if you're considering Nasuni or if you're already even a Nasuni customer. You know, check it out. The, but so there are capabilities that within Nasuni that, you know, the for those of you that aren't familiar, we call them FileIQ Premium. We have a solutions like OpsIQ. We have a Nasuni data service, which is, you know, API access to your data for programmatic access. You know, all how do do you see, you know, customers and and and being able to wanna take advantage of capabilities like that to be able to progress from it's part of the stage it's part of the progression from basic file storage to an environment that supports better visibility, better operational oversight, and and, most importantly, that AI ready readiness, Mhmm. that access to data for AI initiatives. Absolutely. Well, again, be before I became an analyst for DCIG, I was, for twenty four years, the IT director at three different private colleges and universities. And, my experience was I I kinda said it already or hinted at it. You cannot manage what you cannot see. And, these tools. that Nasuni has created enable visibility. A FileIQ premium, that provides visibility into file data usage with automated alerting and notifications of, you know, aberrant events, that are happening to give you a clue, hey. Something's going on. Maybe it should be, maybe it shouldn't. So, that's an important capability from FileIQ Premium. And then OPSIQ, really provides visibility into the Nasuni infrastructure itself, enabling you to optimize and and avoid performance issues and all that. So optimizing the overall environment. And then you mentioned Nasuni data services, a newer offering, that does provide visibility for other applications into, the Nasuni managed file data without having to extract it, but, like, directly in the object store. And that'll be useful for things like retrieval augmented generation that many enterprises are embracing now. You know, RAG, you'll see that, presented as that. And then, integrating with other applications. As we did our research, no one solution comprehensively addressed all of the framework, you know, every aspect of unstructured data management from the foundational elements through pillar number seven. And so the ability to integrate with other applications in a ecosystem is really important for every solution provider, and, NDS is one of those things that provides that kind of integration opportunity to add capability that some organization needs that may be specialized to it or to its particular industry vertical, and so that that's really important, as well. Right. Right. Are Yep. Makes sense. there other things you wanted to address, Lance? Well, no. I mean, I think, you know, that I I would agree. I mean, those those capabilities, the reason we've added those technologies in, you know, into the mix here, and I'm right now, I'm showing a slide that just sort of illustrates. the platform and its overall benefits, but there's much more to it. But, you know, Right. but that ex the opening up of that, you know, for AI, it really sets up customers with it gives them the flexibility they need because, you know, Mhmm. every company is different. Right? They're and they have different needs, and they wanna be able to, you know, integrate with different at different stages or with different with different LLMs, different providers. The flexibility is pretty pretty key. But, I think there's really, there's there's a a general pattern that we see with Nasuni customers and how they and how they sort of approach that journey. I've I've got a as you might imagine, I think I think I have a slide for that. Here, I'll share it. We call it a a hang here we go. I it's a we we we call it a fit for eye framework. It's really a, and it it it resonates with customers in terms of, you know, how they how they approach their their their data because the you know, there's there's a lot to consider. And so you you hit on it. as as that that basic foundation, right, was you better assess what you've got, those unstructured data silos, because there is that example of there's somebody there's another let's just say, you know, it's in Los Angeles. Right? And they they they're managed differently, and we don't even know corporate or the rest of the company doesn't really know what's out there, and and probably there's data that would be valuable to the rest of the business. So assessing that in that environment is is critical. And then okay. Great. By the way, I don't really have the budget. I I could really optimize my cost by consolidating that and eliminating those silos to be suited to begin with and get down into that single single framework, single namespace, single single environment that you that you spoke to. Uh-huh. And that but and there's generally speaking, there are huge cost savings there. Right? We not to go too far down the path, but that that that is a huge benefit for most organizations because, you know, listen. We don't talk about maybe cost savings so much as cost optimization because it's a that's. an opportunity to take costs that where you used to spend your budget on in in managing all these different silos and different administrative environments and all the backup and recovery software that goes along with each one of them, and maybe they're different, and probably some of you on the audience right now are going, oh, yeah. That's me, is Right. to eliminate that and opt and take that budget and apply it elsewhere because AI is not cheap as far as I can tell. And. so, you know, you you need to be able to allocate your resources appropriately, allocate your personnel in the best possible way, and and get rid of those data silos. They're not helping anyone. And then then as part of that, what you mentioned around permissions, you know, is around assessing. security. And That's right. because a lot of times, there's permission reconciliation that takes place where I I I certainly need to be able to, you know, get my house in order. This is all about getting your foundation in order for your data, and then you can curate it. When you know what you've got, you know where it is. You know you've got your permissions right. I can curate it and make sure that I'm just sharing the right data for AI, and so that's, that's the kind of that's the kind of journey we see a lot of customers take or and people that. join Nasuni and and, and use Nasuni, you know, to realize those benefits. But that's sort of the process that they go along because they, and everyone's, by the way, is at a different level. Right? Sometimes they've already, hey. Listen. We already know we've got a bunch of silos. We've assessed them. We know we've got this is a bad way to do business. It's not gonna scale well. Five years from now, Mhmm. we're gonna have a real mess on our hands if we don't do something about this. And, and so they they've taken steps to move that way. But there's there's always more to do in terms of, you know, curating and understanding your data and and because your AI initiatives are gonna change. You know? But this this week's initiative is not gonna be what you're doing next year. And and probably. it'll be a lot more, and it'll be using agents and, you know, it'll be it'll be more advanced. Let's just leave it at that. So, Uh-huh. so yeah. So that's. that's want of it in a nutshell. Yeah. yeah. And I wanted to comment a couple things. One, this. framework represents not just a way of thinking about or a phased approach to implementing, you know, improvements in getting fit for AI, but, my understanding is Nasuni also offers services around, these steps to help your your clients move through, you know, and up the stack as it were. Is that correct? Absolute. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Tools and tools and services. Right? Because not everybody has those or maybe not everyone has the expertise and they just, you know, just need sort of guidance. And so, yeah, we definitely definitely provide services around that. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the beauties of the Nasuni architecture from my perspective is the fact that you're consolidating, the data into an object based kind of golden copy that then you can grant access to those various locations, through your the edge appliances. That so, you know, so that, the the place you've got out in LA or whatever, they don't need their own separate storage system anymore. They can have this appliance that really is just caching the data that they need, but, ultimately, it's living in that core repository, one centralized repository that can be managed globally, consistently with your policies applied. And the fact that you can deploy those appliances, you know, on servers that are sitting in an office, but also in various cloud locations, to get. access or, provide close access to the data. So they get performance like they had when they had their own local appliance and perhaps even better. But without, Yeah. having to manage that data in a distributed fashion, you can manage it separately. I think it's one of the great strengths. of the the Nasuni architecture through your your global file system, UniFS. Yeah. Thank you for that. I mean, I might be a little biased, just a little. Sure. But it but but but, you know, but, it it, it the the architecture of Nasuni is, is very interesting. And when I first started here, I'm like, wait a second. We can do what? That's awesome. So, yeah. So, anyway, that's that. But, let me tell you what. Let me shift gears a little bit. Let's talk. about let's talk about how, let's talk about the pillars. Right? And and. let's let's walk through the DCIG, your your your seven pillars, and let's and let's talk about how Nasuni aligns there and discuss some of those areas for our audience today. Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, first of all, we we've seen the the seven pillars, Right. and and I would point out for for that framework report, it isn't just, oh, here's the picture. Now we gotta go figure it out. For each of those, pillars, you know, in the re the report itself, we define what that pillar means, what's included, what's the business challenge that it need it addresses, what are the benefits of an effective solution, What are the key capabilities, that we ought to look at and look for in a solution? And it also provides a set of assessment questions to a starting point to help, the the enterprise user think through, and talk about, their unstructured data requirements as it relates to that pillar. And, again, it is a vendor neutral completely vendor neutral framework built on analyst research at DCIG as well as those executive interviews. Wanna. Right. Okay. so let's look at how Nasuni, where its greatest strengths are as it relates to that platform. First of all, I guess, Okay. I'll go back to those found Nasuni does provide these foundational elements, that scalable network storage, again, based on object storage that could, exist in one of many, cloud providers that you're familiar with. But, also, if it's important for data security purposes in some industries, you can use on premise object storage as well. And, Nasuni, I know you've got a bunch of detailed implementation guides for various, you know, the the different clouds as well as, some of the key object storage providers. Reliable network connectivity that, again, the edge caching design, means that, actually, you can survive interruptions in Internet access without losing access to files at your distributed locations and then synchronize up later when connectivity is restored. So it it obviates some of the networking issues, but also because of your compressed encrypted snapshots that are frequently taken from the edge as data changes and pushes them back to that core repository. It makes really efficient use of the available bandwidth. So, again, Right. True. that reliable network connectivity, you address that. And then the fundamental security measures, you know, data, I know you encrypt it everywhere. You know, on premise, you know, at the edge and transit in the cloud, and then, you rely on, the opportunity then to also leverage the cloud providers to provide, the replication and redundancy and other things of data, that just provides, again, all the foundational elements, that that are required as part of a overall comprehensive solution. So if organizations are struggling with any of those areas, you know, Nasuni addresses those in in a significant way. And and although Nasuni addresses all the pillars to a degree, the greatest strength areas are are in the four of the pillars. First is data storage optimization and archiving. And this is a little screenshot from part of the report. And you strongly align your solution strongly aligns with the requirements of that data storage, optimization, pillar. And those include that idea of automated tiering. Again, the caching appliance automatically tiers the hot data, in a sense, tiers it. It makes it available at every edge location, based on the needs of that particular edge location with, again, the golden copy stored in the cloud. That that's a it kinda makes tearing invisible. Also, Right. because. of that in that intelligence, one of the things I think is significant for those looking in terms of optimizing costs, because of that intelligence about keeping the hot data local, it allows organizations to use the least expensive online storage tier of that cloud provider because of the, again, the intelligence of the NuCiti platform will keep that data hot where it's needed and and allows it to live in maybe a cooler environment, that. the the organization can choose. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. And then real time storage analytics is is really foundational to the platform to enable that intelligent tiering, and now you're leveraging it with the Nasuni, you know, FileIQ and OpsIQ as well. And I know you're planning on building more capabilities on top of that intelligence, as you move forward. And, then, yes. again, FileIQ adding real time alerting for unusual user behavior and activities. All those things contribute to a. strong alignment, for data storage optimization and archiving. Was there anything you wanted to comment on, Lance, before I move on to pillar three? No. I appreciate you talking about Nasuni. Like, this is great. I so it's fantastic. No. I would I would just say, you know, the analytics, you know, a a few years ago, analytics for when it came to unstructured data was sort of a maybe a nice to have, and it's emerged as a gotta have, must have capability because of that growth, because of the need to be able to curate and be able to use it for AI. It's it's the requirement there has certainly escalated. So it's a, There you go. absolute requirement. And, you know, we we have produced a a lot of dashboards and analytics tools. And, if any of you are customers, you probably said, hey. I love this dashboard, but can I have this dashboard? Can I have something else? There's always more. Right? But there's always, it's a, but it's a it's a it's a it's a powerful asset, and it's an essential asset when it comes to managing this kind of growth. And it and it's certainly it is critical when you think about the data that'll be generated or that is being generated by your AI Got it. Very good. Well, pillar three is about data access. and security, and, this is a core strength of the Nasuni platform. You know, it comprehensively aligns with all the requirements around data access and security, starting with that global namespace architecture. Again, that enables that uniform management of the data and the application of policies across the whole data environment and gives the users a consistent experience as well. You know, that but a single point of control for security policy enforcement. Granular identity management and control systems. Nasuni integrates with Active Directory and LDAP for access control, and, Nasuni also supports, then all the ACL, that are in place for apps on the originating systems as you migrate to Nasuni. All those controls can come across, into the Nasuni environment as well, so you don't lose anything in making that transition. Advanced threat detection is part of this, and we already addressed that somewhat. But Nasuni Yeah. has standout ransomware protection features to detect and stop known and zero day attacks at the edge. And then, come up with mitigation reports and strategy. Again, that the way that that the, snapshots, work, means that there you can always roll back to a pre attack, spot without actually interfering with, the investigation opportunity ongoing because every change is. tracked, in in that golden, environment. And then there are mitigation policies to limit the. damage, and, you also integrate with SIEM tools. So recognizing you're part of a larger enterprise data, environment, you can integrate with other tools, that are part of that notification and alerting and management of of the infrastructure. Yeah. You know, Ken, when we're talking about data access and security, the only thing I would I would thank you for that, but I I would add Sure. that, one of the big drivers is back to when we first started, we're talking about some of the big drivers and AI being one of them, and. the ability to have you think about data resilience. Kinda think I wanna think about AI resilience. Right? So I have. processes that I have automated and that I am that I'm using unstructured data for that is part as a participant. and as part of the process. And the the that delivery of data cannot can't be down for can't be the health care system that's down for a week. Right? Your entire you you had twenty four seven automated AI driven processes that are now fully stopped. You just, you know, put the brakes on your company, and the and the, we all know downtime is the most expensive, possible. It's a big problem. You're right. It can be millions of dollars depending on, an hour, depending on the size of. your business. So, you know, that so I encourage people to think about AI resilience as part of your how are how are you gonna keep things running? So what happens go. when, you know, do you have a disaster or some ransomware attack or what have you? How are you gonna fast the speed to recovery is essential? So, anyway, There you go. to interrupt. with wanna chime in there. right. The with the new city environment, one of those things being able to spin up another edge appliance instance even in a cloud region that that. rapidly populates with the necessary metadata and then, you know, streams, the necessary data as you go is one of those key, like, rapid recovery and business resilience capabilities. One of the elements of this pillar, by the way, is secure multisite access, and that's actually Nasuni, a couple years ago, won, DCIG top five recognition for secure multisite access. And, again, a key enabler is that edge appliance approach with, the golden copy in the cloud. And now you offer advanced web access as well, which enables. secure sharing outside the organization with file links that can include multiple links per file or folder, sharing links via email, and even one time passcode protections. So those are all capabilities that align with that that pillar, and Nasuni does great with those. And then zero trust security, I mentioned the security infrastructure. With the cloud native global file system, it's engineered so security is actually part of the architecture. That's sorry. It sounds like a Nasuni advertisement, but we are impressed with. It's just it is foundational, fundamental. It's built in, and and it's a core principle, of the platform. So, again, comprehensive alignment with that pillar, on the Nasuni part. Okay. And here we got the the pull Yeah. up. Yeah. And, I just, start we? just started a new a new poll, sort of asking you what your biggest challenges are. And you're thinking about your environment and what what your what are your unstructured data management challenges. Just be really curious to help, to to understand what what, you know, where where the where the trends lie, if you will. So I just wanted to Very wanted to get that started there. So I'm. sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm I'm gonna move on to pillar four, data preservation and resilience. Again, Nasuni comprehensively aligns with the requirements of the data preservation resilience pillar. It's, again, the core of the Nasuni architecture with validated strengths of, 11 nines of durability and sub fifteen minute recovery time objectives. Those will satisfy most enterprise requirements. You know, it starts with immutable data backup protection. And with Nasuni using that cloud object storage in worm format means that that data is immutable, and you don't need a separate backup infrastructure. It's immutable natively, where where it's stored in the first place. And geographic replication, again, you can leverage the replication that's built into the various tiers of cloud storage, meets the requirements. Continuous data integrity verification and automated recovery, also built into the cloud platform architecture. So Nasuni leverages that very intelligently. And then robust disaster recovery capabilities. I've mentioned it already, but the ability to spin up another instance, in a cloud region, or, you know, rapidly in another in a location if they have, their equipment failures. You can bring up another instance pretty quickly and and, in a way that does, enable resilience, for the business. And then the ransomware protection add on. There are some. capabilities native to the platform that are foundational, like, you know, the notifications that can happen that integrate with things like Slack and all, but really advanced capabilities and ransomware protection to enable you to recover rapidly, again, using known signatures and behaviors. And then, within seconds of detecting an attack, the Nasuni platform can provide an incident report that outlines the recovery, approach that's gonna be needed and a. recovery. timeline. You know, it's really good. It's rock. solid. That great. that gets to the AI resilience I was speaking to earlier. Yeah. There absolutely right. you go. And then, finally, in terms of the pillars oops. There we go. Here we go. movement and orchestration. And it's really not so much about moving the data as making the available data available where it's needed, whether that is through the file system structure using a edge caching appliance or natively in the cloud using the Nasuni data platform, the MDS. And, and now, also, you've done you've get initiated MCP protocol support Right. that can also enable, you know, AI type applications to directly access the Nasuni data while still being managed and controlled by your security policies. So, again, they. align with most of the requirements of that pillar, by leveraging that caching technology. Right. So, Ken, we've talked about, some of the pillars. We didn't we didn't probably don't have time to go through all seven of them, but I think, you know, you you you mentioned, like, early on, like, not every vendor covers all seven perfectly. And let's be. honest. There there there is these are things that we are areas that there are other areas that we are working on here at Nasuni that we that we will be releasing incoming releases that will further, you know, support the all these pillars, Yep. all seven. I think the seven pillars guidelines is is excellent for any organization thinking about how they're gonna manage unstructured data. So, you know, re I I dare I say regardless of vendor, I mean, I prefer certainly believe you should be looking at Nasuni, but, considering that, but, you know, there's there's there's, you know, you really, at the end of the day, you you kind of called out the key the key element here is that there are various tools and integrations that can support unstructured data management initiatives that Nasuni does supports. Right? That's all all good. You bet. having the having the foundation that foundational architecture is critical. Right? So, you know, you can say, well, oh, I'm already in the cloud. I I have some I have files in the cloud, so I'm good. Right? It's like, well, sort sort of. And you you may have future opportunities to optimize your cost. That's for sure. But, you know, Mhmm. you you still need those integrations and flexibility, and you need the architecture, that kind of distributed architecture, if you will, that lets you gather AI data from the edge, incorporate it back in a global namespace, you know, sort of a bidirectional activity flow, in terms of because not all AI tools, you know, live at headquarters. People out in the in the Mhmm. in. various regional offices are or need that data. And then then it needs to be classified. It needs to be orchestrated. It needs to be curated. It needs to be permissioned, permissions need to be validated so that it can be used in your in your AI efforts. And, and and so those use cases, they're gonna vary by everybody. Right? I I think, Uh-huh. I mean I mean, I don't know what what kind of I know I know what use cases we see our customers asking me about. One you mentioned a couple upfront. Is there anything in particular that use cases or trends that you that you see? Well, actually, I'm gonna mention what I have in my brain already, and, and that. is. out of that platform, that evaluation of the solution, overall, you know, we identified seven strengths of the Nasuni platform, the business benefits. Overall, I just wanna highlight business. resilience, cost optimization with operational simplicity. Again, the eliminating that complexity of many, many storage silos is a key value driver. Global collaboration being enabled. Multi cloud flexibility through your support for many, of the clouds as well as private cloud, fast. file access at the edge, proven performance, and then the third party integrations to fill additional capabilities or integrate with solutions that are specific to a particular industry or even a particular customer, their own custom, applications. Those are all, things that drive value, for Nasuni customers. And and my conclusion is the Nasuni cloud native architecture delivers broad, unstructured data management capabilities in a unified solution that eliminates traditional scaling limitation. Excels at consolidating storage. That's not new. That's been Nasuni from day one, Yeah. but also providing enterprise grade security resilience and global collaboration abilities. And it excels especially in environments requiring global data access, cost optimization, and operational simplification. And when I was an IT director, there were some capabilities that we'd implemented ahead of most of our peers, but they really ride relied on a person on my staff. And that was one of those risk elements of, you know, what happens if they get in a car accident or they choose to work for a different employer? You know, now I've. got, you know, I've got complexity. I can't manage effectively. You know? It was a risk, And operational simplicity of the Nasuni platform mitigates risks like that, in the areas that it addresses. Yeah. That that's very true. We hear we hear that a lot. It's, you know, resource utilization. You know, it's a it's a it's part of the IT experience and IT management process. You're gonna make the most of the resources and the budget you have, and it then those are not infinite, unfortunately. Yeah. They're not oh, No. unfortunate. Indeed. Budgets are not infinite. Right. So we're we're. getting close to the end of our time allotted time, Lance, and I wanna what. are the most compelling business cases you have seen, where, unifying storage protection and management, create value for your clients and accelerate AI deployments? Yeah. Well, I would say I was gonna am I stuck? Are we still sharing now? I was gonna say I would there's a lot to come to mind immediately. I think the the the most common youth use case, I think that the I think where everybody starts is this, leveraging, corporate knowledge. Right? In the in intellectual property or repurposing intellectual property within an organization. And I don't care if you're in manufacturing, you're in customer service, you're in you're a legal profession, professional services, whatever the whatever the industry that you happen to be in. You know, one of the first things that people do is like, okay. Great. I've got all this data. Now oh, hey. Now I've got it in one place. Fantastic. My accuracy. is is confirmed. The quality of the data is confirmed. And now I can use this to do customer self-service, or I can use it to for my, you know, my my internal reps that need to be able to, you know, Yes. do competitive intelligence, research or whatever the case may be. You know, that that is one probably the first and fundamental aspect, but I will say that a lot of lot of our customers now are saying, alright. That's that's yes. That that's good. But now how do I how do I identify and nail down the exact processes where AI can be a benefit where unstructured data participates? And so for what what just came to mind was, you know, manufacturing concern of of some some size and renowned, I should say, but the and they'll they will go unnamed, but they, you know, they are capturing data out at their regional manufacturing locations right off the line. Sometimes it's, you know, it's it's, microscope scans, you know, or it's or it's, you know, digital scans of equipment that are going back and and that are captured and brought back in for the because you're you've got a distributed teams. My QA team is not at the manufacturing site. They're back in headquarters or they're back at a regional. office. And and and the response times and time to market invalidation of quality in this particular case that comes to mind. is that that has to happen quickly. I can't I'm not waiting to find out if I find out four or five days later that there's a quality control problem and I meanwhile, I've been chugging away cranking these things out, that's probably that's not gonna be good. So you just wasted. a a a lot of time and money and effort. And and so maybe as, you know, a basic example, if you will, but it but it's the the capture of data because of that distributed architecture where I have edge devices, virtual machines in the cloud or on premises, whatever the case may be, that. provide me that immediate, access and ability to have that data flowing and then be able to have those that data automatically, you know, put back into the object central object storage back in that central global namespace for the benefit of others. And not everybody sees it, of course. It's just maybe, Right. like you said, you're you're intelligently caching the data. So the QA team in Topeka, you know, is is is looking for particular data, but the finance team back in LA doesn't couldn't care less. Right? So. there's that. that segmentation and the speed of the process. At the end of the day, this is just another technology. And but being able to understand, curate, and do all the things with your unstructured data, that unstructured data management platform can deliver and help and enable for you, that's at the end of the day, that's what you're here for. Right? Can I can I use this technology to benefit my business, improve process, improve speed, lower costs, and optimize how I how I run my environment? If you can do all those things at once, that's that's not a bad thing. So that go. that's that's There think go. that's what we see most of our customers doing. Very good. So what's the for most organizations that you work with then, what's their path to value, with Nasuni? The path to value is probably a probably a couple things, but the the path to value is sort of outlined with the, the the the fit for AI framework is is getting. your foundation in order. You know? If I if I had to summarize, you know, how people wanna use, you know, unstructured data, if if if the takeaway for everybody here today is is two things. Right? It's it's one, you know, you really you don't have a data strat you don't have an AI strategy without a data strategy. You absolutely have to organize your data. And there are you know, I've I've seen other companies that they put an umbrella over it and say, oh, yeah. You just connect here, but then you still have distributed data silos. You're still you still have redundancy, duplicate content. You're you're not actually solving the problem. You're you're pulling a blanket over the problem. So I think. that that understanding that and and and understanding that, one, you need to do it. I'd say do it now. It's easy to kick the can down the road. It is. So we'll. just buy more storage and think about this next year. You know, you can only do that so long. And and so getting a. a proper sort of cloud based foundation that lets you grow as you need to and expand as you need to because you are going to have to, Mhmm. it's inevitable, is critical. So I think, you know, I think that's where, you know, I think that's where the light bulb goes on for organizations that they've only thought of file data in a traditional sense, and they've now they start thinking about unstructured data management and what they can do with the data and get derived value from it. And that's when they're like, okay. Wait a second. We got it. Let's let's not build the house without getting the foundation in place. No one would ever do that. Right? And why would you do it in IT? You wouldn't. So, I think that's the that's the the journey that that that most organizations start with as they as they move down this path to really getting value from their data. Very good. Thank you. Well, and and, I'm reminded of like, my economics professor answered almost every question asked in class. It depends. It depends on where your organization is today. Right? Now you've. seen over and over, it's it's most enterprises have these, you know, this siloed data environment that they just need to get rid of. I mean, they need to consolidate and put this, unified access, around, over it and replace it with something that, does provide the scale and opportunity. But but and and that's one of the beauties of the framework, by the way, is, you know, you can enter from anywhere and and have a flexible path to addressing the gaps that your organization has in its unstructured data. Manage what are what are its requirements and needs, and then use that to identify, what are the solutions we ought to be looking at. And do those actually provide the capabilities that we need to close our gaps and and have an effective overall strategy for managing our data? Yeah. Yeah. And I think with that, we're we're I know we're at time, but the, I think I wanna thank everybody for for joining us. And to that end, what you just mentioned, Ken, everyone, if you haven't done so already, go to the docs docs tab, at your top right in that in that where the where you might see chat by default and, take a look at that framework. Consider what you can do with your business. Take a look at the, you know, the Nasuni profile, how Nasuni aligns to that and and how we potentially can help your business and help you get moving down this path. It is a it's an important path, and it's one you're you're you're, almost certainly going to have to do depending on how your business is going to grow and where, you know, your eventual path there. So, I think, Ken, I guess I wanna say, first of all, thank you, and thanks for, thanks for the research you did about Nasuni in this particular sense. And and and, you know, thank you for the, for taking a look at unstructured data management in a way that I don't think anyone else has. I think the at least I haven't seen, you know, that this this framework and really breaking it down to make get people to think about and all of us to think about how we manage our data. And that's Yeah. ultimately, that's why we're all here. We wanna use data for the benefit of the business, and and get get the most from it. So thank you for that. You are welcome. And, yes, as we've talked through this framework with many different solution providers like Nasuni, we've got great feedback of saying, oh, this is how I think about it, or this really is helpful, makes sense of the space. And and, again, DCIG certainly hopes and believes that this will be a very useful tool to help enterprises evaluate their current situation, find the gaps, and then seek out solutions to close the gaps and and to enable, you know, effective management of their data infrastructure. Yeah. No one's gonna argue with that. Can't beat that. Alright. Ken, listen. Thank you so much for joining us. Everyone, on the. on the you know? And thank you to everybody that attended. Really, appreciate your time. I know you got other things to do, but, hopefully, this was a value to you. And did you rethink how you wanna approach unstructured data management going into 2026? We're here to help. Let us know. And, we appreciate your business, and I appreciate you joining us today. Thank you so much. Bye, everybody.