Jason joins ESG

Today, I begin my next adventure – as an “Analyst & Lab Engineer” for ESG, the Enterprise Strategy Group.

For those that don’t know ESG, they are mostly known for their industry research and analysis of IT, particularly around Storage, Data Protection, Virtualization, Infrastructure Management, etc.

I had known of and worked with ESG as a client in many past lives, including:

  · Briefing ESG on upcoming product releases

  · Vetting of my products’ roadmap, both about my technologies and go-to-market strategies

  · Hearing from ESG in terms of where they think the industry is going, and how I might adapt to take advantage of those trends

  · And more lately, I have watched new aspects of ESG such as the ESG Labs, offering a third-party validation of technology for confirming product claims and helping articulate why new capabilities might matter not only for the IT Pro, but also the business decision maker or a potential partner.

And of course, that research and expertise doesn’t come from a faceless engine, but by some of the folks that I have spent much of my industry career following from tradeshows, to publications, to blogs and tweets.

So, I was humbled, flattered and excited when one of my ESG contacts reached out over the Summer, suggesting that there might be a place for me within that team. Well, after some great phone calls and a quick visit out to Boston in July, I am very excited that today is my first day as part of the ESG family.

What will I be doing at ESG

My initial focus area is being part of the ESG Labs team, helping assess and validate client technologies. In short, this will feed my inner geek, and let me play with some very exciting new technologies around data protection, storage and virtualization. I will be working with Product Managers and Marketers (similar to who I used to be in my last job at Microsoft), but from the other side of the table and keyboard.

So, over the next several months, look for a wide range of blogs, tweets and podcasts from me – as I play with diverse technologies from startups that may not even have shipping products, to industry giants who are about to release their vNext’s. Yes, this gig really is that cool !   🙂

You should also look to find me at some more industry events moving forward. Am hoping that my friends who organize Microsoft events will want a System Center Data Protection Manager SME who now watches the entire data protection industry to come and speak in their venues (hint, hint). Am also hoping that the event organizers for Storage and Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity events that I used to speak at might consider inviting a guy who used to live and breathe protecting Windows environments. (hint, hint, hint, hint !!).

In addition, the ESG folks are cooking up some other ways to tap into my passions and background, but you’ll hear more about that in 2012.

Well, now you know what I know – and I hope that you can see why I am excited.

What about DPM ?

Well, from a purely technical and mostly un-bias perspective:

  · I have been preaching D2D2T (disk-to-disk-to-tape) for 15+ years, and DPM has been doing that since 2007. Of course, “the cloud” has come a long way since then.  So these days, I am a fan of D2D2C and DPM delivers that today through partnerships like i365 and Autonomy (was Iron Mountain Digital).

  · And I still believe that VSS is the right way to protect most Windows data

  · And I still like the idea of “Who better to protect and recover Windows-data than Microsoft”

So, from a technology perspective, I am still a big fan of DPM. There may be alternative technologies that I am currently unaware of, but hey, that is one of the other reasons that I am excited about being at ESG (see above).

From a totally bias and non-technical perspective:

  · I have lots of great friends both within Microsoft and among the Microsoft MVP community

  · DPM was “my product” from v1 (30 days old) through v4 beta … so I have a personal sense of ownership and pride that will not wane anytime soon.

So, look for more excited posts from me as DPM 2012 releases. In fact, I have been asked to contribute to a DPM 2012 book, so you never know.

Moving Forward

When I was working for various smaller software companies and channel partners, I used to think of Microsoft as the highest podium to preach from (in terms of data protection for Windows). At the time, I hadn’t imagined being part of the team that watches the entire data protection and storage space (among other IT technologies) – so I am sooooo jazzed to have this new platform to talk about data protection — and even more excited to be part of the great family of SMEs to join in ESG.

My new ESG email is Jason.Buffington@ESG-Global.com

My new ESG blog is www.(to-be-determined).com, but those posts and all of my others can also be found on my existing blog (which also includes a mirror of many of my Microsoft posts) here at http://CentralizedBackup.com

And I will continue to tweet as @JBuff.

As always, thanks for reading.