Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2016. Read them in this 8th Annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Dan Leary, VP of Products, Solutions and Alliances at Nimble Storage
Storage Will Work Smarter, Not Harder
The shift from being a passive
to proactive business is here. As part of this movement, companies are adopting
real-time, predictive tools that allow them to gather colossal amounts of data and
turn that data into actions - both from a business and operational perspective.
Storage vendors will be
evaluated by their ability to meet this impending need.
In 2016, these vendors, both
legacy and next-generation alike, will need to rethink their strategies to stand
out and remain competitive.
Companies hone in on
actionable data
As
more companies strive to become data-driven, the ability to turn data into actions
will become an invaluable differentiator. Companies will be able to move
faster, ultimately leading to greater innovation and the ability to keep pace
with customer demands. Approaches to generating actions from big data will
evolve as infrastructure increases in complexity.
Today's
data centers present challenges. Multiple teams support a wide array of applications,
compute platforms, networking, storage and infrastructure. Turning to
individual teams to aggregate the data and generate actionable tasks is not
enough. In 2016, vendors that understand interactions across the entire data
storage stack will need to be responsible for providing operational
intelligence back to data center teams. Prescriptive, expert analysis marks the
next step to improving data science and operational intelligence for
enterprises. Rather than leaving room for error, prescriptive actions based on
scientific data analysis will become a norm. CIOs will take notice of the
benefits and emphasize operational intelligence as a vital part of their
strategy when making strategic decisions.
Flash performance gives way
to new capabilities
The
criteria for storage is changing. The more vendors tout high-performance,
flash-optimized storage offerings, the less weight performance carries. Now performance is table stakes. When
considering a vendor, performance is giving way to other primary
differentiators such as scalability, reliability and even predictive analytics
offering real-time visibility.
IT teams are bombarded with
day-to-day issues and rarely have the time to focus on building out
architectures or fixing system failures. With the sheer amount of data
generated each day, businesses are recognizing the importance of holistic
solutions that extend beyond performance. As infrastructures continue to become
more complex, a solution's scalability, reliability, data integrity,
manageability and in-built data protection and predictive analytics capabilities
will now be top of mind for IT decision makers.
Being
a fast-paced, proactive enterprise will be a priority in 2016. The adoption of automated
solutions that can quickly identify and resolve issues will free up IT
professionals to focus their time on value-add projects rather than investigating
and fixing problems. By achieving the true value of data for business and
operational purposes, CIOs and IT teams will be able to benefit from greater
agility.
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About
the Author
Dan Leary, Vice President, Products,
Solutions and Alliances
Dan is responsible for products,
solutions and alliances at Nimble Storage. Dan has a 20-year track record of
success in managing industry-leading, award-winning hardware and software
solutions. Prior to Nimble Storage, Dan served as vice president of marketing
at ConSentry Networks and as vice president of product management at Peribit
Networks, where he was instrumental in creating and defining the "WAN
Optimization" category. Juniper Networks purchased Peribit in 2005 for $337
million. Dan also held management roles at netVmg, Lucent Technologies, and Bay
Networks. Dan holds an MS in engineering-economic systems from Stanford University
and a BS in systems engineering from the University of Virginia.
