Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021. Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
4 Ways Data Storage Will Be Different in 2021
By Shridar Subramanian, CMO at
StorageCraft
Predictions are an inherently risky proposition.
After all, they rarely pan out. How many people in 2019 predicted that we would
have a global pandemic in 2020 that would dramatically change how we live, work,
and play?
With that in mind, we're not swinging for the
fences with our data storage predictions because this year taught us that
absolutely nothing is predictable. Instead, we believe the following four observations
will continue to gain traction in the coming year.
1: COVID-19 will change the data-management
paradigm for years to come
Security, backup, and recovery across remote
locations have long been a significant challenge for organizations. Of course,
this was true even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The problem has been
exacerbated by COVID-19 and remote working because data is now further
distributed and has compounded vulnerabilities.
The reality is that we won't be going back to the
office anytime soon. What's more, many companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and
Dropbox have announced that their employees can permanently work from home,
even after a widely adopted vaccine.
As a result, companies need to manage and protect
data at these edge locations effectively. Specifically, they will need to put
greater emphasis on simple-to-implement, low-cost, cloud-based solutions that
can effectively back up and protect data in remote environments.
2: "Zoomification" will put an unexpected strain on
storage capacity
In the COVID-19 era, companies are generating more
data than ever. Just think about all the Zoom calls that are now being
recorded, shared, and ultimately stored. Many organizations don't yet realize
that video storage costs can run into millions of dollars annually. They will
soon face a wake-up call as they outgrow their existing storage space and
scramble to meet far greater data-storage requirements.
The same is true for educational and healthcare
institutions. For instance, schools are dealing with exponential growth in the
amount of data they handle as students and teachers increasingly embrace
digital content, cloud services, and online apps. Meanwhile, the rise of
telemedicine and the need to access, store, and protect patient data is putting
added pressure on health systems across the globe.
The long-term impact of COVID-19 will be a perfect
storm of video sprawl and runaway storage costs. Cloud storage costs that start
at a few hundred dollars a month may well balloon to a few hundred thousand
dollars annually in the course of a few short years. To succeed in this
data-intensive reality, organizations need an efficient and affordable way to
expand their storage needs while improving their data backup and recovery.
A new scale-out approach to storage will be
essential. Such a system will enable organizations to purchase storage upfront
at a reasonable price and then scale-out that storage cost-effectively over
time.
3: Data storage will embrace zero trust
For years, the famous security maxim was "trust by
verify." But now organizations embrace a zero-trust approach to security. They
entirely remove trust from the equation and assume that everything-including
users, endpoints, networks, and resources-is untrusted and must be verified.
Only minimum permissions are granted at just the right time to get a job done,
and then those permissions are revoked immediately after completing the
assignment or transaction.
A similar approach will soon be embraced when it
comes to data protection. Indeed, a new
study by Enterprise Management Associates revealed that, given the rise of
remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic, 60% of IT buyers have fast-tracked
their deployment of zero-trust polices and technology over the last seven
months.
Take, for instance, an employee who is requesting
to have data recovered from their laptop. What are the real-time credentials
certifying that this particular employee can restore a specific machine? What
permissions were contained in the backup image, and do those permissions need
to be changed to reflect current requirements? If IT is restoring a machine
that was set up a month ago, who is ensuring that no one else has access to that
machine?
A zero-trust approach to data backup and management
will help answer these questions while further protecting enterprise data.
4: Data storage and backup will get more
intelligent
Organizations large and small are now collecting
massive amounts of machine learning and IoT data. For instance, think about all
the data Tesla is currently collecting from its hundreds of thousands of
vehicles on the road as part of its effort to deliver real autonomous driving.
Many companies are now doing the same, collecting and analyzing oceans of data.
But here's the burning question: If your company
depends on collecting and analyzing data to operate and succeed, what happens
if that data is not fully backed up and easily recoverable? What happens if you
lose any of that data? For a company like Tesla, any issues with data could
result in inaccurate algorithm engines and off-kilter heuristics that could
potentially put lives at risk.
Most companies are thinking mainly about data
analysis and much less about data backup or security. But as data increasingly
moves from analysis to production environments, that's when protection becomes
critical. Cutting-edge storage tools increasingly rely on AI and machine
learning to automate the data backup process.
Given the exploding size of enterprise data, these
intelligent tools will become vital for maintaining an efficient backup process
that can quickly and effortlessly react to changing requirements while saving
untold hours on manual backups.
Final thoughts
In our increasingly distributed work environment, immediate
access to data and online collaboration is a must for every business. In 2021,
organizations must evolve and enhance their digital environments and make it
more seamless to operate remotely. However, the challenge is that these remote
work environments generate massive amounts of critical data that needs to be
adequately protected and stored. By adopting a modern approach to data storage,
organizations can more effectively transform their business and thrive in this
new normal.
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About the Author
Shridar Subramanian is CMO at StorageCraft. He has more than
23 years of experience in information technology. Shridar joined
StorageCraft with the acquisition of Exablox in January 2017. Prior to
StorageCraft, Shridar was the VP of marketing at Virident Systems, a
leading provider of PCI SSDs, and he also was the senior director of marketing
at Monosphere Inc., a storage virtualization software company.