Digital
business initiatives like automation and artificial intelligence demand
high-performance and massive capacity storage. In turn, this is driving
adoption of on-premises all-flash object storage to provide customers' top need
- comprehensive data protection at scale. That's according to a new research paper released today
from Enterprise Strategy Group and Scality, the object storage
pioneer. The full report, The Digital Era Is Fueling Adoption of All-flash
Object Storage, is available for download here.
ESG's prior
research found that AI/ML and analytics are the business differentiators IT
needs. Accordingly, 64% of IT decision-makers using AI/ML expect to increase
spending in 2021.
To meet the AI challenge,
the report finds that IT leaders are transitioning their data storage
ecosystems to run on all-flash object storage, encroaching on the territory of
traditional primary storage solutions. All-flash object storage powers the
heavy workloads necessitated by these initiatives by quickly giving access to
large volumes of unstructured data.
The most
significant all-flash object storage benefits include accelerating AI/ML
environments, empowering business intelligence/analytics, increasing infrastructure
performance and utilization, and improved application development.
The report finds:
-
77% of IT professionals at organizations currently using
all-flash object storage say the technology has had a high impact or has been a
game-changing technology in their on-prem storage environment.
-
Similarly, among organizations using or interested in
all-flash object storage, 77% say new workloads or initiatives are driving
demand for it.
Rapid adoption has already begun:
-
95% of respondents are using flash storage within all or
part of their object storage environments; 23% say they already have an
all-flash object storage solution.
-
87% of respondents at organizations not using all-flash
object storage today expect to evaluate an on-premises all-flash object storage
solution within the next 12 months.
-
57% of respondents ranked data protection and reliability
as a highly important attribute of all-flash object storage solutions; 23%
ranked performance as a top attribute.
Scott Sinclair, senior analyst, Enterprise
Strategy Group, said: "Digital business initiatives are fueling an increased
emphasis on creating, storing and using data. This trend has led to increased
adoption of on-premises all-flash object storage. It is early in the adoption
phase but will become pervasive. All-flash object storage is well on its way to
becoming a foundation of the modern storage ecosystem."
Paul Speciale, chief product officer, Scality,
said: "While the
race to access and harness data faster to power AI is on, companies need to
ensure they have the most protected, reliable environment. In fact,
comprehensive data protection is customers' number one need. Customers are
looking for platforms to improve their ability to access and harness data,
especially as data sets grow at an average rate of 34% annually. The results
from ESG demonstrate the urgency of moving toward solutions that can support
organizations' critical applications, AI and ML initiatives."