By Douglas Brockett, StorageCraft

2020 Predictions for Data Management and Protection

With data management and protection top-of-mind for many IT executives, the next year and beyond in the space will need to continue to rely on groundbreaking new technologies to keep up with increasing demand. I predict the next era of data management and protection will rely heavily on technologies like blockchain. According to recent research by Forrester, ransomware attacks have grown by 500% over the last 12 months, and blockchain has already proven to be an effective tool against these. 

This continued adoption of blockchain in the market, combined with other trends like converged infrastructures and changes in the channel will help contribute to a vibrant market in 2020. 

RANSOMWARE MEETS ITS NEMESIS - AND IT'S CALLED BLOCKCHAIN. 

While it may take a while for blockchain to be adopted in the financial markets or in other consumer-applications, its real-world use-case as a mechanism to prevent ransomware attacks will gain swift adoption. StorageCraft is way ahead of the rest of the industry with an already implemented blockchain file system. I fully expect a ‘catch up' scramble amongst the data management vendors. Moving forward, it will be imperative that vendors provide an immutable file system where data cannot be overwritten or deleted by ransomware. Having a fully auditable, immutable and unchangeable view of the history of data at rest means organizations - even with distributed environments - know if, when and where a ransomware infection occurred. This ability will be critical for both vendors and businesses in 2020 and beyond.

THE CHANNEL GETS WARY OF ACCIDENTAL VENDOR LOCK-IN

The M&A cycle will continue in the MSP space with MSPs acquiring for scale and vertical expansion. However, as MSPs merge and consolidate, they should pay particular attention to consolidation on the vendor side.  As MSPs focus on their OML (operational maturity level), standardization for them only makes sense if it aligns with their business plan. Standardization must be in line with the vision of how they wanted to build their business. In contrast, MSPs may be in for a rude awakening if they find themselves being consolidated into a technology platform - not out of choice but because of vendor consolidation. MSPs will need to be wary of this accidental vendor lock-in and make sure they can opt for best of breed where it makes business sense. 

CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING PAYS OFF - PUTS LEGACY VENDORS ON NOTICE

Early adopters of converged data infrastructures will see their investments pay off in terms of economics, scale and agility. This will accelerate the maturing of the converged data infrastructure market -- and put a nail in the coffin for the big legacy vendors who have built their business models on having a different product line for everything.  Buyers will no longer tolerate paying for solutions from vendors that simply bifurcate their product lines over and over again. We will see the beginning of the end of siloed infrastructure vendors.

##

About the Author

Douglas Brockett has more than 30 years of experience in technology. He joined StorageCraft with the acquisition of Exablox in January 2017. Prior to being CEO at Exablox, Douglas was Vice President and General Manager of SonicWALL, where he was responsible for the company's products, strategy, corporate development, support and cloud operations. He was previously SonicWALL's VP of Worldwide Marketing where he ran SonicWALL's channel and corporate marketing activities. Before joining SonicWALL, he was VP of Marketing and Business Development for Nexsi Systems, a groundbreaking data center networking company. He began his career at networking pioneer BBN where he created and ran BBN's high-end hosting group, and as VP, saw its successful acquisition by GTE (now Verizon). Douglas received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Harvard University.