What do Virtualization and Cloud executives think about 2012? Find out in this VMblog.com series exclusive.

Quantum: 2012 Storage Predictions

Contributed Article by David Chapa, chief technology evangelist, Quantum

1.       Definition of "the Cloud" will begin to stabilize. Often throughout 2011, when "the cloud" was discussed almost without question the conversation around the make-up of cloud was compute, network, virtualization and lots of disk storage - but if "the cloud" is really going to store as much data as some of the research firms have estimated - then another chief ingredient must be included, at least in the near term and that is tape automation. As much as some may want to proclaim its death, the simple economies of tape storage quietly, yet firmly state something quite different. In 2012, many will realize the importance of having tape as part of the big cloud story. Mark Twain and Tape have something in common.

"The report of my death was an exaggeration"

Mark Twain said it and tape is undoubtedly storing it somewhere. Tape is not dead; it is simply being positioned differently to take advantage of its technology merits to meet customer requirements. So how will the definition of the cloud begin to stabilize? First of all, there will be a general acceptance of what "the cloud" consists of, simply what IT is already managing today in its environment, which again includes compute, storage, network, virtualization and yes, tape storage. Secondly, when IT recognizes that it is okay to become the consumers of services versus the providers of services is when "the cloud" will find much greater definition and segmentation in this industry. This dynamic will be a big paradigm shift for many.

2.       Big Backup and Recovery Changes. We have heard it said "virtualization changes everything" - and that could not be more true for data protection. Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, one of the inventors of COBOL, is quoted "The most damaging phrase in the language is, ‘we've always done it this way.'" With virtualization, IT now has a chance to change without risk of attack by those naysayers who fear change. When IT makes the plunge into virtualization it begins to look at the overall environment through new lenses and those new lenses allow IT to divorce itself from "the way we've always done it," and look at the better approaches to not just "backup and recovery" but a real data protection strategy. Backup applications have always been a very "sticky" application in customer environments, and virtualization offers customers a choice to change how they think about backup and recovery. New, thinner and more integrated approaches will characterize the revised look of data protection in a virtualized world. Deduplication will become even more critically important to efficiently and effectively protect these infrastructures without compromising on performance or oversubscribing secondary storage to compensate for architectural deficiencies.

3.       Breaking down the barriers for public cloud adoption. One industry voice has said "public clouds are dirty and unsanitary." Oddly enough, that was because the company this person represented only had a private cloud solution at the time. Now of course there is talk of private, public and this thing that is called the "hybrid cloud" - a combination of both.  I will say that to some degree I agree with that statement about public clouds - to some degree because what gives the perception of the public clouds being dirty and unsanitary are the three main concerns IT leaders have with using the public cloud: security, access and control.  Security, access and control continue to be the barriers of entry for the public cloud to gain enterprise acceptance. What IT wants is true secured multi-tenant  storage solutions. IT needs to know its access and control of its data will not be limited. Perhaps the problem with public cloud has to do with so many providers rushing to offer something to take advantage of the market buzz and hype. Clearly IT needs to interview the public cloud providers as strictly as it interviews staff to run its own datacenter - it's that important. Due diligence on the part of IT will make the difference, and hopefully the cloud providers will "bake in" many of these learnings and requests from the savvy IT organizations to "clean up" the public cloud perception and image. I firmly believe that the year 2012 will need to focus on how these three barriers of security, access and control can be broken down.

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