What’s in Store for Indian Enterprise Storage

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Break down those silos. Relentless creation of data silos is already eating into the capex and opex. Unified storage solutions may appear more attractive to sort all the data that you are consuming. Apart from breaking the silos of block, file, and data, it also means saying goodbye to three-letter acronyms like NAS, SAN, ILM.

Encryption isn't just an option anymore. With off-site storage solutions like virtualization and cloud gaining acceptance, encryption of data will gain acceptance for storage security. Here, instead of accepting vendor encryption, it is better to locally encrypt data prior to transfer to the cloud, and then use the provider's encryption, if possible, as a second level of security.

SSDs will finally have their day. Flash storage and solid state drives may not have been the right choice over the traditional hard disk drive (HDDs) until recently. However, as storage technologies are evolving, applications that demand hundreds of HDDs are falling back on the nimble and efficient SSDs, delivering thousands of input/output operations per second. Global SSD shipments are set to reach nearly 160 million units in 2015, from 22 million units at present.

Archiving cold data is a must. The capacity of archived electronic information worldwide is expected to grow to 300,000 petabytes by 2015. This is attributed to an increase in unstructured archive data, according to an Enterprise Strategy Group Report. As a consequence, tape will continue to be the preferred storage media, in addition to external disk. At present, tape commands a 38 percent share of the overall digital archive volumes.

Dedupe is getting smarter. If you have done little about deduplication, this may be the right time to catch up in a smart way. Technologies that deduplicates at the source rather than at the target are here. Further, the target deduplication market is set to be disrupted and replaced by integrated backup appliances. They will combine source and target deduplication, backup software, replication, snapshots, security, and cloud integration in a single appliance.

Storage professionals will need to double up as cloud administrators. Make sure your storage manager is well versed in "storage without boundaries" as predicated in virtualization and cloud storage models. This would mean proficiency in networking, business continuity planning, and overall design and implementation of business infrastructure.

PCM is coming. Phase Change Memory is touted to be inexpensive, high-speed, high-density, high-volume, and non-volatile storage. The rise of PCM in storage solutions could mean an influx of new devices hitting the market and existing equipment reaching the end of service life.

That’s just the beginning. Mobile devices are going to command new concepts, storage as a service options will grow, and the cloud will reshape storage in more ways than we can cover here. CIOs have a lot to think about and a lot to store.