As data becomes the new currency for modern-day businesses, many are still seeing challenges in being able to use their data in meaningful, tangible ways. This can hinder a business from moving forward and staying competitive, and it’s crucial to continue supporting efforts to help businesses know how best to handle their data.

“Data becomes really the true competitive advantage for most organizations,” said Lynn Lucas (pictured), chief marketing officer of Cohesity Inc. “And yet if they can’t operate or bring compute to that data and do something with it, they’re really at a handicap.”

Lucas spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu) and Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Microsoft Ignite event in Orlando, Florida. They discussed data problems and solutions for Cohesity’s customers. (* Disclosure below.)

Remaining challenges

One of the biggest challenges is siloed data. Enterprises know that they have data, but some are still struggling to know where it is and how best to put it to use, according to Lucas.

“It’s just something folks are starting to really get a handle on,” she said. “You’d be surprised at how many aren’t even really sure how many islands [of data] they have. So even mapping … data, I think, is a capability that many organizations are still getting their arms around.”

A huge challenge then becomes figuring out how to manage that data. “In today’s world it’s very expensive to move large data sets, and so you want to bring compute to the data,” Lucas said. This is where concepts like hyperconverged infrastructure come into play.

“A lot of the organizations here [at Ignite] are now really understanding the pragmatism of having a hybrid strategy, of what makes sense in the cloud, as well as what may continue to be on-prem,” she added

Cohesity’s goal is to help every single company — whether they started out as data natives or not — to have a chance to succeed through hyperconverged secondary storage solutions, according to Lucas.

“We want to … level the playing field and allow them to become competitive with their data by providing that single foundation,” she concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Microsoft Ignite event. (* Disclosure: Cohesity Inc. sponsored coverage of Microsoft Ignite, and some segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE are sponsored. Sponsors have no editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE