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Market research firm Mordor Intelligence predicts that the enterprise flash storage industry will continue to grow into 2022 and beyond. The flash market is growing fastest in India and China as these countries upgrade their internet infrastructure and cloud storage capabilities. However, the largest share is still in the United States. In the US, the rise of cloud-based business-critical software with frequent read/write operations is driving this growth.
In addition to the performance benefits, flash helps reduce power consumption costs in data centers, although costs per gigabyte are still relatively high compared to hard drives. The price of SSDs continues to fall as technology becomes more reliable and drive capacity increases. In contrast, the hard drive market share has been declining since peaking at $34 billion in 2014 and is expected to fall to $12 billion next year.
Multi-cloud
According to a report by analytics firm Gartner, investment in cloud infrastructure grew 32 percent last year to $59 billion. By the end of 2022, that number is expected to surpass the $100 billion mark. However, in places once dominated by AWS, companies are now diversifying their cloud storage contracts with multiple providers, creating a multi-cloud storage solution that leverages services Select from different contracts.
The Wallstreet Journal reported earlier this year that companies like Experian are simultaneously looking for multi-cloud solutions from AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle. Federal agencies, such as the CIA and the Pentagon, have also followed a similar path, terminating a planned 10-year, $10 billion exclusivity contract with Microsoft for cloud storage. However, cloud providers are not stagnant in their services. Instead, some, such as Microsoft and Oracle, work together, allowing their customers to seamlessly deploy a multi-cloud solution that leverages Azure and Oracle Cloud at the same time.
Learn more: Managing security in multi-cloud environments
Containerization
The Kubernetes project, developed by Google and now open source, has created software that manages containerized applications while organizing them in multiple environments. A Gartner study predicts that 75% of enterprises will run containerized applications by 2022, which will force the hosting industry to deploy flexible and persistent storage solutions to match Kubernetes, even on multiple clouds. Although packaged applications are highly portable, maintaining consistency poses challenges when, for example, an application needs to reference a database. As the application migrates, each new instance must be redirected to its data. Companies like NetApp are developing solutions for managing containerized applications to create persistent data connections across multiple storage locations, breaking the boundaries between public and on-premises cloud workloads. place.
Also Read: Top Container Software and Orchestration Tools
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The major players in the hosting world have enjoyed great success implementing AI in their operations. In 2016, Google leveraged its DeepMind AI, which reduced energy spent on data center cooling by 40%. German manufacturer Siemens caught up with its own AI thermal management program last year, cutting cooling costs that normally account for 30% of data center power consumption.
Google then extended its AI to generate weather forecasting models that forecast the thermal impact of outdoor temperatures as well as fluctuations in production from wind and solar assets. Machine learning-based artificial intelligence can process millions of data points per second, accumulated from sensors located in data centers, and can make adjustments faster than an operator.
These are proprietary solutions, however, for small data centers to build their own AI in-house. There is a lot of room for growth in this area, but the rising energy future will put pressure on data centers to reduce electricity costs. Network as a Service
Finally, pandemic conditions have accelerated a change in the way companies connect to their data storage. In its Global Networking Report 2022, Cisco forecasts short-term growth in network-as-a-service (NaaS) market adoption, which has left IT professionals hesitant. Under the NaaS model, businesses of all sizes lease network hardware such as switches and routers, providing rapid scalability and on-demand pricing.
As network boundaries become more ambiguous and the path between enterprise and consumer data changes, a service-based approach gives businesses the flexibility to adapt to a changing landscape without large investment costs. This further reduces the cost of maintaining and upgrading network equipment, but a Cisco survey of more than 1,500 IT professionals found that many still fear losing control of their hardware. “Conceivably, organizations have a multitude of technologies and investments at their disposal, many of which fall under different amortization schedules,” the report said. “Other organizations have legacy technologies and applications that may not be suitable for NaaS.
“And some don’t want to offload the day-to-day management of their infrastructure.”
The path to follow
These are just a few of the growing trends in the data storage space. Other developments to watch include new approaches to data center sustainability, new advancements to edge computing, hardware-level security improvements, and growth in the storage space. computer storage.