Through his writing, speaking, and research, David Hill focuses as an industry analyst on the transformations that are impacting information technology, notably in the field of information infrastructure. He has a concentration on storage and storage management, specializes in modern data protection, and takes an integrative perspective to emerging technologies—such as big data, advanced analytics, and the cloud—that impact the whole information infrastructure, but more particularly storage. He looks at how enterprises can best go about adopting new and improved processes, policies, and technologies that not only meet immediate requirements, but also help position themselves for future growth. He is the principal at Mesabi Group LLC, the industry analyst firm that he founded in 2004.

Prior to founding Mesabi Group, Hill was an industry analyst at the Aberdeen Group for a number of years. As the Vice President of Storage Research and founder of the Storage & Storage Management practice, he emphasized how enterprises could leverage their enterprise-wide storage investment to derive additional business value. Hill led both qualitative and quantitative market research studies during his tenure at Aberdeen.

Before Aberdeen, he carried out strategic marketing, competitive analysis, sales force planning, and market forecasting for EMC. Previously, he spent many years at Data General where, among other activities, he directed Data General’s internal IT data centers as well as managed the introduction of new analytical tools and business systems. Earlier in his career, as an operations research analyst at Cabot Corporation, he introduced some of the earliest decision support modeling projects, including simulation modeling using systems dynamics.

David has an advanced degree from the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

David contributes frequently to the electronic newsletter Pund-IT Review and has a blog at Network Computing. He is the author of Data Protection: Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance, published by CRC Press. This book addresses the rapidly changing scope, breadth, and depth of modern data protection.