Data is everywhere. It’s captured and stored in more places than ever, thanks to the growing popularity of edge, cloud, multicloud, and hybrid cloud solutions that merge cloud and on-premises infrastructure. And, it’s leveraged in increasingly complex ways through Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and the Internet of Things (IoT).
In short, the amount of data to store and manage is growing exponentially and shows no signs of slowing down. IDC predicts “the Global Datasphere will grow from 33 Zettabytes (ZB) in 2018 to 175 ZB by 2025.” That means global data is expanding at a compounded annual growth rate of 61% — which represents more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated daily.
With all that data comes the complexities of storage, management, and protection. Speed, scalability, and security are the trending drivers of today’s data decisions, which is why we’re seeing so much discussion lately around options like containerization, Converged and Hyperconverged Infrastructure (CI/HCI), multicloud, and hybrid cloud, as well as cloud-like As a Service options.
Along with the sheer mass of data driving a need for change, evolution in business needs, technologies, and preferences have played a big role in shifting organizations’ approach to storage.
Performance for leveraging AI/ML and IoT technologies
The expansion of digital business and the advanced technologies that come with it, such as AI, ML, and IoT, have resulted in unprecedented amounts of data being generated, creating concerns with classification, storage, security, and more.
Managing the data generated in these technologically advanced environments requires a storage architecture right-sized to workloads and with the power to handle your organization’s needs for performance, capacity, and cost-efficiency. Data lifecycle management, the process of classifying and managing your data throughout its lifespan, is a key component of optimizing data, how it’s used, and how it’s stored.
Preference for on-premises cloud-like OpEx models
Flexible, cloud-like consumption models have become more popular as organizations turn away from traditional CapEx infrastructure spending toward options that help mitigate risk and remove uncertainty. Organizations are finding that pay-as-you-go on-premises storage models, a type of Storage As a Service (STaaS), help to increase storage capacity, reduce latency, and more easily meet governance or regulatory standards with solutions that don’t require a large cash outlay upfront.
Especially for organizations dealing with reduced risk tolerance and data sovereignty issues that prevent cloud as an option, As a Service can deliver the optimal balance of control across cost containment, data protection, and compliance.
Protection for sensitive data across architectures
Given the way data can flow between regions and cloud providers, data protection and recovery can be a challenge. It can be difficult to know how to leverage existing backup tools or to identify gaps. If that describes your current scenario, a Data Protection Assessment could be a good start. Data Protection Assessments deliver guidance for identifying and resolving your backup challenges, helping you answer questions like:
- How do we protect data in the cloud?
- How can I replace my tape infrastructure for long-term archive? How can we simplify our backup administration?
- How can I move workloads between cloud providers?
- How do I comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements on my backup/archive data?
- How do I simplify my recovery efforts of archive data?
Whatever challenge or needs are defining your data storage experience, Cloud + Data Center Transformation (CDCT) can help. Our experts have been in the storage industry for more than 25 years, evolving as the technology has advanced. We’ve invested significant resources into understanding flash, cloud, converged infrastructure, software-defined, and the storage landscape as a whole, and we’re happy to talk with you about how to choose and leverage the storage solution that’s right for your digital transformation.