Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT), a global leader in enterprise backup, recovery, archive and the cloud today announced continued business expansion by its ecosystem of channel partners worldwide as a result of the implementation of the Commvault Data Platform as the foundation of wider General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) solutions.

Many organisations are struggling with GDPR compliance. Commvault’s recent “Measuring IT’s Readiness for Digital Business” study of 1,200 IT executives and personnel uncovered that more than 60 percent of respondents believe they have access to less than half of their organisation’s data. TechValidate findings also indicate that with specific regard to management of personal information, only 18 percent of organisations had the capability to delete that data on request from all data stores – a process that could be immediately required of any entities operating within EU markets as of May 25. Even fewer, only 8 percent, believed that they would be able to collate and export data from their organisation to a third party at the request of individuals. 

These factors have driven a significant increase in the interest and urgency that Commvault’s partner community is placing on strategic data management and protection projects.

The complexity of the IT and business challenge represented by GDPR has enabled Commvault partners to increase the level of strategic engagement and deliver increased value to customers. The Commvault Data Platform has fully integrated application frameworks, capabilities and packaged service offerings all specifically created to help organisations better protect and manage data across all workloads (on-premises, hybrid, cloud and in between). As a result, Commvault customers are able to obtain better data insights for compliance, eDiscovery and a variety of other digital transformation use cases, including meeting GDPR and other regulatory requirements.

“GDPR presents a great opportunity for partners to guide customers along their compliance journey and to support vital data management initiatives,” said Carla Arend, Senior Program Director, European Software and Infrastructure Research, IDC. “Choosing a technology vendor who has strong technical capabilities as well as a deep understanding of how to apply their technology appropriately for GDPR compliance is important for partners to build and scale their own GDPR capabilities. The GDPR opportunity for partners ranges from helping customers to achieve compliance to identifying business opportunities based on GDPR compliance.”

The new Commvault® Sensitive Data Governance (SDG) application, launched at Commvault GO 2017, is the first component in a series targeted to address various information governance use cases. A stand-alone offering that does not require any other Commvault solution, SDG simplifies the best practices of assessing and managing the risks of managing sensitive data at scale, starting with file servers and endpoints within a single tool set. SDG enables several critical functions including:

• Detection of personal and other sensitive data across unstructured data holdings that can help to validate manual analysis and uncover additional data blind spots
• Risk profiling that helps to prioritize risk mitigation plans when faced with data overload
• Proactive cleanup of unnecessary personal data, directly from the data source and any backup copies
• Review and approval processes to support the joint decision making required by IT and business units in support of investigations and data subject rights (including access and erasure – right to be forgotten)
• Automated remediation of actions dictated by data subject requests with full audit trails to prove compliance

Several customers are already using Commvault Sensitive Data Governance to reduce the risks and costs of relying on a variety of niche products and manual processes.

“Organisations need to have high confidence in their ability to identify and manage sensitive data within structured data sources. However, for many, unstructured data is a bigger challenge that represents a critical blind spot that will be under the microscope as of May 25,” said Damon Robertson, Managing Director of COOLSPIRiT. “With Commvault forming the foundation for our GDPR-specific offering, it has provided us with an opportunity to grow the levels of trust and business value among our customers to a point where we are now often viewed as strategic partners, rather than simply a reseller.”

Scott Strubel, Commvault Head of Worldwide Channels, added: “The complexities and regulatory requirements of GDPR are such that the channel has a real opportunity to step up and assume the position of technology champion and genuine trustee of GDPR delivery for organisations looking to May 25 and beyond. Through working closely with us, and using Commvault’s advanced data protection offerings as the foundation for many of their broader GDPR technology offerings, our partners are not only growing their pipelines, but more importantly growing true, long-term, and successful, customer relationships.”

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