I’ll grant you the topic sounds a little morbid, but it’s not what you think. I am referring to when an organization announces the end-of-life and subsequent end-of-product support for a product or service that you have relied on. Obviously, a range of issues immediately rise to the surface, such as culling a short list of replacement products, vetting them and ultimately selecting the best product to replace your current “dead man walking” product. It can be a daunting and time consuming project, but here are a couple of things one should consider when choosing a replacement candidate.
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- Functionality - At the most basic level, can the new product fulfill all the requirements that the current product is performing?
- Forward Compatibility - Does the new product being considered have the headroom to not only fulfill today’s requirements, but also have the development and technology capabilities to address future demands and requirements that may be coming down the path? Remember, we do not wat to be in the same position in another 3 years.
- Ease of Use – There are two areas to consider with ease of use. (a) How steep is the learning curve and how much work is it going to be operate the new product. (b) How much effort will it be to migrate from the old product to the new.
- Ecosystem Community – Will the product play nicely with your currently deployed technologies that you have in house. The most promising prospective vendors are ones that have done the heavy lifting for you by already doing the integration and have the documentation and success stories to prove it.
- Reputation – What is the reputation of the new vendor you are considering? Are they a new company that may or may not be around in five years? Do they stand behind their product? Who is currently using the product? Are they leaders in their field or are they a jack of all trades but a master of none?
Often times, and for a variety of different reasons a company may decide to end-of-life a product as has been the case with RSA Data Protection Manager. Some customers are faced with the need to migrate to another vendor that can fill their current and future requirements when it comes to protecting their most valuable asset – their data. Leveraging the checklist above can help provide an outline as to which vendors to evaluate for this highly sensitive and strategic role. Vormetric not only provides data protection to some of the largest and most demanding organizations globally, but it also ideally positioned to help customers make the migration as easy and seamless as possible. For more information on making the move from RSA DPM to Vormetric, check it out here.