Decay is a fact of life that applies to digital bits and bytes, as well as those leftovers in the shared company kitchen. When it comes to data, that decay, or "bit rot," can threaten the piles of business-critical information that IT departments increasingly trust cloud vendors to manage, store and protect. How can IT pros determine whether their cloud vendors will adequately protect data? It starts by asking the right questions.

Today, we are excited to unveil Acronis AnyData, a next generation data protection technology. Developed over the past 10 years, AnyData offers easy, complete and safe backup, disaster recovery and secure access capabilities across any and all environments and locations.

There's never a dull day in the IT world: Just as IT pros get used to BYOD, so-called wearable technologies enter the picture. What's the best way to handle the data storage and security implications of wearables? Here's a look at that question — and other looming IT challenges — from around the web this week:

The rise of connected devices, from refrigerators to thermostats and even medical devices, has created an interesting data debacle: How should users collect, monitor and store the loads of data their devices now create? Here, Joel Berman, Acronis fellow and longtime IT professional, explains the data storage implications of the "Internet of Things," why a one-size-fits-all backup policy doesn't work, and how to manage the stream of data from connected devices.