eDiscovery in the Cloud is Obviously Working

eDiscovery in the cloud is obviously working as this week Autonomy. a global leader in eDiscovery and GRC infrastructure software for the enterprise, announced that  they are now managing over 17 Petabytes of email, documents, and multimedia data on 6,500 servers on 8 data centers around the world. Seventeen Petabytes is equal to more than 11 times the size of the 10 billion photos on Facebook, or 226 years of HD video.

I think that this announcement answers questions about whether or not the enterprise will allow its data outside the firewall.  And, to a certain degree answers the debate about the future of cloud computing in the eDiscovery and GRC markets.

As a cloud based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) evangelist of the past 10 years,  I am really pleased to see that cloud based computing is gong mainstream and gaining momentum within the enterprise.  And, I am even more pleased to see these trends in eDiscovery and GRC market.

However, as I am also a best-in-class advocate and evangelist, it is disappointing to see that a vendor with a monolithic solution based on a proprietary database (IDOL) seems to have taken the lead in cloud based computing.  Don’t get me wrong, I am very impressed with what Autonomy has accomplished and have tremendous respect for their technology.  That being, said I am now curious about market penetration and acceptance, hosted data amounts and SaaS based application utilization by best-in-class component technologies in the same markets that Autonomy is playing.

We all know about the success of salesforce.com.   I wonder which technology vendor or technology vendors will take on Autonomy with an more open systems best-in-class type approach and rise to the level of success as a salesforce.com?

In some respects, the answer to the question of who is competing with Autonomy may be found in the fact that there are no other providers that have put all of the “best-in-class” solutions together along with workflow management under a single enterprise class data center.  And that each of the individual SaaS based technology providers is only marketing a component of the overall solution and therefore doesn’t really have a single source solution to compete with Autonomy.

So, is the answer that some service provider needs to bring all of this together?  I have been studying several potential candidates over the past 12 months and will be reporting on their offering(s) and their potential impact on the market before the end of the year.  Stay tuned.
The full text of the Autonomy press release is as follows:

Cambridge, UK and SAN FRANCISCO – October 12, 2010 – Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L), a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced that Autonomy's private cloud computing platform has reached a new data processing milestone, extending its lead as the world's largest private cloud. Autonomy private cloud now manages over 17 Petabytes of email, documents, and multimedia data on 6,500 servers on 8 data centers around the world. Seventeen Petabytes is equal to more than 11 times the size of the 10 billion photos on Facebook, or 226 years of HD video.

The continued dramatic growth of Autonomy's private cloud is the result of Autonomy's unique, meaning-based approach to cloud computing, as well as the rapid adoption for multichannel marketing applications. Powered by Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL), Autonomy's private cloud automatically recognizes concepts and patterns in the billions of files it ingests and indexes every day. The ability to automatically understand the meaning within all forms of data provides a significant advantage to the customer, whether it's a compliance officer or lawyer responsible for archiving and reviewing emails, video, and social media posts around a particular case, or a chief marketing officer looking to deliver the most relevant and proven content to a website visitor in real-time.

As a result, Autonomy is now the dominant leader in a range of private cloud computing applications. Autonomy is driving rapid uptake amongst marketers looking for a cost-effective, fast, and turnkey platform for hosted marketing applications. For instance, a marketing team can form a virtual chain with its network of design and advertising agencies, to securely collaborate on the development of rich media content. Autonomy's cloud-based marketing modules include Autonomy Optimost, Autonomy TeamSite, and Autonomy Virage MediaBin.

Likewise, corporate legal departments are increasingly turning to Autonomy to form a virtual private chain with their law firm partners, in order securely collaborate on relevant information for a particular investigation or case. This cloud-based approach to eDiscovery results in radically compressed timeframes for the eDiscovery process. Autonomy's private cloud processed 36,000 eDiscovery audits year-to-date, producing 48 Terabytes of eDiscovery data. Autonomy's cloud-based information governance modules include Autonomy Consolidated Archive, Early Case Assessment, Introspect, Legal Hold, Records Manager, Supervisor, and iManage WorkSite.

"Most technology providers consider cloud computing to be nothing more than making the contents and applications in a digital storage box accessible via the internet," said Mike Lynch, CEO of Autonomy. "However, Autonomy's meaning-based approach to cloud computing brings intelligence to a range of applications, from archiving to eDiscovery to marketing. Autonomy provides the ideal platform for our Protect and Promote customers, who are dealing with an increasing array of content to govern and apply policy to, produce for eDiscovery investigations and review, and who are seeking greater agility in launching multichannel campaigns that resonate with their customers."
Autonomy's private cloud is hosted in state-of-the-art and high-security data centers. The data centers are under 24/7 surveillance, and each one undergoes annual Statement of Accounting Standard number 70 or "SAS 70" audits. Two fully synchronized, geographically separated systems provide complete data and system redundancy and parallel processing of all tasks. The design addresses all aspects of multi-tenancy, such as multiple firewalls and virus protection, and is ideally qualified to support the performance and volume requirements that are necessary for processing the rapidly expanding number of corporate formats and unified communications – including all forms of text, audio, and video.

About Autonomy
Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L), a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, spearheads the Meaning Based Computing movement. IDC recently recognized Autonomy as having the largest market share and fastest growth in the worldwide search and discovery market. Autonomy's technology allows computers to harness the full richness of human information, forming a conceptual and contextual understanding of any piece of electronic data, including unstructured information, such as text, email, web pages, voice, or video. Autonomy's software powers the full spectrum of mission-critical enterprise applications including pan-enterprise search, customer interaction solutions, information governance, end-to-end eDiscovery, records management, archiving, business process management, web content management, web optimization, rich media management and video and audio analysis.

Autonomy's customer base is comprised of more than 20,000 global companies, law firms and federal agencies including: AOL, BAE Systems, BBC, Bloomberg, Boeing, Citigroup, Coca Cola, Deutsche Bank, DLA Piper, Ericsson, FedEx, Ford, GlaxoSmithKline, Lloyds Banking Group, NASA, Nestlé, the New York Stock Exchange, Reuters, Shell, Tesco, T-Mobile, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. More than 400 companies OEM Autonomy technology, including Symantec, Citrix, HP, Novell, Oracle, Sybase and TIBCO. The company has offices worldwide. Please visit http://www.autonomy.com/ to find out more.

Autonomy and the Autonomy logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autonomy Corporation plc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Labels: Autonomy, Compliance, eDiscovery, Governance, GRC, Litigation Service Providers, Litigation Software, Risk and Compliance

posted by Charles Skamser @ 10:17 AM