Veritas has announced the expansion of its Information Map solution to analysing unstructured data with an S3 Connector for data residing in the Amazon cloud. Previously, Information Map only provided visibility into data protected by Veritas NetBackup software

The Information Map visualisation tool helps identify risk, waste and complicated migration paths between clouds.

"This is the first time we've announced a new data source that is not part of the Veritas portfolio," said Alex Sakaguchi, Veritas senior director of global cloud solutions marketing.

"Customers now can get a visualisation of their data even if it is not touched by NetBackup. In a sense, it was a limitation because data had to be backed up via NetBackup.

"So now with the S3 Connector, they can get a visual of their data from an extra data source as long as it exists in an S3 bucket," he said.

Sakaguchi said Veritas will add additional connectors beyond S3 this year.

The company says data visibility visa the Information Map helps to ensure compliance with data regulations around the world, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which takes effect in May, 2018.

Findings from the Veritas 2017 GDPR Report state that only one in 10 enterprises polled globally believe GDPR compliance of data in the cloud is their organisation’s responsibility - a false assumption. Under GDPR, organisations are just as responsible for adhering to the same data privacy mandates for data stored in the cloud - including any public cloud - as well as data stored on-premises.

“Customers want the same level of data visibility and protection in a multi-cloud world as they have on-premises,” said Mike Palmer, executive vice president and chief product officer, Veritas.

“They also want to be able to migrate workloads to multiple clouds simply, without being locked in. Today, we are delivering on all of that through these technology innovations. And we are excited to continue to develop technologies that build on our relationships with Google, IBM, Microsoft and other cloud providers.”