Rapidly growing volumes of data and advancements in technology have opened several new doors for the Storage industry. Owing to the demand for safe data storage, protection, and analysis, the business world is quickly pivoting towards AI-driven, All-Flash storage models to enable the next level of cost-saving and efficiency. The need is to do that while paving the way for an ecosystem that is predictive, scalable, and secure. Reports suggest that the next-generation data storage market will reach $81 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 8.5%.
The Storage industry has come a long way
The industry began its journey with the solid state and flash drive space, which, at that time, was sufficient to meet the basic storage demands of organizations. However, as the popularity of cloud sky-rocketed, the industry truly entered the realm of software-defined storage that enabled enterprises to get easy access to cloud storage as and when needed.
However, over time, the demand for low-cost data storage, faster data accessibility, and in-built security grew even more. This paved the way for cloud-enabled storage solutions. These solutions not only brought down the cost of storage; but they also drastically reduced the threat perception – especially for organizations in the banking, healthcare, and government sectors.
Soon, storage companies began combining storage and compute with convergence technology. This helped in eliminating the physical, logical, and management barriers that were common to traditional data storage and retrieval methods. Today, the industry is moving towards next-generation storage solutions, built on the foundation of AI, IoT, and other smart technologies.
Next-gen storage solutions are quickly picking up pace
Today, as the amount of structured (and unstructured) data that is being generated by organizations grows manifold, there is an increased need for reliable, cost-effective, and advanced storage solutions to store and manage those huge volumes of data. Next-gen storage solutions can provide organizations with the solutions to meet the market demands. Here is how Storage is witnessing disruption from all quarters:
- Innovations in AI and analytics: In the last couple of years, several innovations have emerged across AI and analytics, multi and hybrid cloud infrastructure, DevOps, and edge computing. To power these innovations in the tech space, organizations need to embrace next-gen cloud storage technologies, which are propelling the data storage market growth. A modern and reliable storage infrastructure foundation can help organizations scale in a way that provides continuous value for the business.
- The as-a-service trend: Advancements in the cloud have also led to a global evolution of the as-a-service trend. From the traditional SaaS, the business world is now exploring options like Storage-as-a-service that enables anytime, anywhere access to storage using cost-optimized and flexible cloud-based models, causing the data storage market to further open up opportunities and challenges.
- Growing demands of customers: Today’s tech-savvy customer expects lightning-fast performance and availability of applications and data. This has put immense pressure on companies to meet these growing demands. Next-gen storage technologies like All-Flash, NVMe, Cloud, and AI-driven storage enable organizations to meet the needs of their business while ensuring quick, efficient, and reliable performance of their software applications.
- The focus on security: Security incidents today have a strong bearing on normal business operations and can negatively impact market reputation, customer experience, and competitive standing. Embracing novel, uber-secure storage solutions is the only way organizations today can safeguard their business data while ensuring the customer experience is safe and seamless.
- The effect of the pandemic: COVID-19 has led to unprecedented disruption in most industries across the globe. As virtual events, online shopping, content streaming, and remote work models become commonplace, the business world is witnessing a fundamental shift in how technology is viewed, built, and accessed. Next-gen storage technologies can help organizations meet this sudden increase in demand with ease.
Keep up with the trends
The data storage industry is constantly evolving, with new trends and technologies disrupting the industry like never before. Although it is tough to predict the future, it is important to be aware of the latest advancements, prevailing micro trends, ongoing disruptions, venture funding, and emerging market opportunities. Embracing the latest innovations in All-Flash, Cloud Storage, HCI, NVMe/NVMe-oF, Persistent Memory, and Computational Storage is a great way to better manage the three critical dimensions of data, namely, storage, protection, and analytics, and propel towards achieving the next level of cost-saving, performance, and efficiency.
Looking to know more about the current state of the storage industry and capitalize on emerging opportunities? Our keynote on “StorageNxt: Disruption, Opportunities, and Funding Insights” at SDC 2020 has all the information you need about the present and future of storage.
You can also subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter “Hyphen” to get regular updates around the latest industry concerns and solutions.
