2015 Trends in Storage and Archiving
As predicted at the end of last year, active archives became a
more mainstream best practice in 2014.
Businesses and organizations are recognizing the value of
active archives in addressing their overall long-term storage needs.
As we begin 2015, members shared their predictions for storage
as it relates to active archives in the coming year.
Advanced Data Tape Will Carry More of the
Storage Load
With all the
innovation occurring in the tape market, the pieces are in place for tape
solutions to expand their presence in the data center and carry more of the
storage load in 2015. The timing could not be better as users struggle with
increasing data loads and limited budgets. Innovations like LTFS, barium
ferrite, tape NAS, Flape (flash + tape), tape in the cloud, high capacity
formats and extended roadmaps are coming together to provide solutions for data
protection and active archiving.
There Will Be Increased Adoption of Storage
Tiers
The need for
large-scale data capacity is driving the implementation of an increasing number
of tiers of storage across a growing number of organizations. There will be an
increase in tier 0 with a tidal wave of flash adoption for the fastest form of
storage as well as a multi-tier approach to long-term data, with the rapid
adoption of public cloud and an anticipated swift increase in private cloud
creation. Combinations of flash, disk and tape are being used in both public and
private clouds to meet custom requirements. An increasingly complex storage
environment will become the norm, with specific data being placed on specific
storage technologies for specific periods of time with automated 'data fluidity'
systems controlling the life-cycle process.
Greater Intelligence Between Applications and
Storage Will Simplify Active Archive Deployments
Applications that can be integrated with storage will
improve overall storage management by removing complexity and helping
organizations to better utilize active archive solutions. Solutions will use
intelligence to deliver the right storage to meet application performance while
driving efficiencies that help keep storage costs within targeted budget
requirements.
There Will Be a Move to Object Storage as an
Archive
There is a
movement in the industry towards object storage as an archive. Object storage is
attractive for several reasons: 1) it is massively scalable; 2) it is cost
effective; and 3) it is able to also act as a cloud infrastructure for
collaboration. The trend is being accelerated because there are many ways to
access an object based archive these days, including NFS, CIFS, mobile OSs.