Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020. Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Russ Kennedy, chief product officer, Nasuni
Cloud-washing, consolidation and continued rapid data growth
It's no secret that data is growing at an
amazing pace and IDC predicts global data to reach 175 zettabytes by 2025. But
what can we expect in 2020 and the meantime? We will see technology providers
continue to prepare for the data deluge, maneuvering to put themselves in
position to capitalize as the migration to the cloud marches on.
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Beware of "cloud-washing": Legacy storage
systems were designed to work on-premises. As more enterprises execute their
cloud-first strategies, the market for on-prem equipment is shrinking. Those
storage vendors will try to retain their market share by attempting to simply
port their systems to the cloud which will not be efficient or easy to use -
hallmarks of using the cloud. In many cases, managing the operations of these
environments will grow more complex, exacerbated by data and applications being
housed partly on-premises while still trying to enable fast access to global
users.
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Continued consolidation of cloud-based companies: The success of cloud providers like AWS and Google have not gone
unnoticed and other companies are eager to claim their piece of the pie.
Cloud-friendly and cloud-native technologies are now in high-demand, especially
with legacy IT vendors. 2020 will see more mergers and acquisitions of cloud-based
companies, like Veeam in January.
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Data growth will accelerate: Data is doubling
at a rate of every two to three years. In 2020, we will see growth accelerate
significantly. This will be driven by higher resolution cameras both on mobile
devices and video surveillance, more 4K video content being produced, IoT data,
genomic research, three-dimensional medical images and more. File size and
number will also increase much faster, causing organizations to examine their
strategies for data storage, protection and access.
We can be certain that the cloud has arrived
and enterprises are looking to this resource more and more to transform their
businesses. Moving forward, the cloud won't just be another pool to store the
growing amounts of data, but it will be the platform with which businesses
expect to easily manipulate and analyze data. The cloud-friendly approaches
will rule in 2020 as businesses spread and grow faster.
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About the Author
Russ Kennedy drives product innovation at Nasuni, leading the
company's product management, planning, and roadmap efforts. He has a maniacal
focus on ensuring Nasuni customers derive maximum benefit from our technology.
Russ is a well-known and highly regarded storage industry
executive, with more than 25 years of experience developing software and
hardware solutions to address exponential data growth. Before Nasuni, Russ
directed product strategy at private cloud object storage pioneer Cleversafe
through its $1.3 billion acquisition by IBM. While Russ was helping transition
the product to what is now IBM Cloud Object Storage (COS), he began working
with IBM partner Nasuni, and became convinced Nasuni's cloud-native global file
system is the only data management technology that truly exploits the strengths
of object storage.
Earlier in his career, Russ served in a variety of
product management and development roles, most notably at StorageTek (acquired
by Sun Microsystems), where he brought several industry-leading products to
market.
He has a BS degree in Computer Science from Colorado
State University and an MBA degree from the University of Colorado.