Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2022.  Read them in this 14th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Multi-cloud, Container Defined Storage and Object Storage Landscape Consolidation

By Anand Babu Periasamy, Co-Founder and CEO at MinIO

As we have learned and observed throughout the pandemic and 2021, single-cloud and hybrid approaches are beginning to be replaced by multi-cloud strategies. Here are my predictions for 2022 on this significant transformation, as well as other key industry trends, including the rise of edge storage, container defined storage, the shrinking of SAN/NAS markets and more.

1) Multi-cloud matures into something seamless

The concept of multi-cloud may not feel like much of a prediction, but it seemed far-fetched last year when everyone was talking about the hybrid cloud. Guess what? The hybrid cloud got lapped in the last twelve months. Enterprises already use nearly three public and three private clouds apiece. Hybrid cloud is still a thing, but the requirement for multi-cloud takes the conversation to the next level. Using the stats above, the average enterprise runs between five and six clouds today.

However, it is hardly seamless. Unfortunately, for many enterprises, the multi-cloud is a series of silos. The "common denominators" are few and far between. Yes, Kubernetes is a stunningly powerful unifying force and greases the wheels for application mobility, but seamlessly migrating security, access management, policy management and other mission critical IT functions across clouds is challenging at best.

One area that is solved is object storage. With its relentless attention to S3, Kubernetes and industry standard integrations, MinIO runs everywhere from the public cloud (550K hosts on AWS, GCP and Azure), private cloud (Tanzu, OpenShift, Rancher/SUSE, Ezmeral and 1.1M daily docker pulls) and the edge. That means un-siloed multi-cloud starts with MinIO.

We think the rest of the industry catches up in 2022.

2) Edge storage becomes a container play as it moves further out to accommodate the requirements of billions of sensors, 5G POPs and cameras

While the edge has two primary topologies, edge cache and edge storage, the growth will come in the latter. Edge storage increasingly demands containerization because it does not look like a mini data-center but rather a distributed system of endpoints.

To be successful in this model, everything needs to go into the container: application code, databases and even persistent storage. To fit in a container at the edge requires lightweight, powerful, resilient and secure software components. This is why MinIO is the object store of choice - it can run in a stateless container while ensuring the data retains state. If the container fails, the data remains safe in all but the most extreme examples of total loss.

3) Software defined storage giving way to container defined storage

Kubernetes has already won - this much we know. Since Kubernetes only knows how to manage containers, not bare metal or appliances, this is where the world migrates to. Interestingly, this extends to services too. Only when EVERYTHING is software defined can virtualization be optimized. Only when EVERYTHING is containerized can Kubernetes be optimized.

This makes container-defined everything the trend to watch in 2022. For those organizations struggling to make the transition from appliances to software, the bridge to container defined may be too far.

4) Even in the face of unprecedented data growth, the object storage landscape will consolidate while the SAN and NAS market contracts

We will start with the object storage market. Traditional object storage companies have struggled to make the Kubernetes transition, even though Kubernetes and object storage go hand in glove. This has proven particularly challenging for the smaller players who lack the runway required to become container defined. Expect more exits in 2022.

There are significantly more vendors on the SAN and NAS side vying for relevance in the Kubernetes era. Since POSIX is a legacy API in this world and no amount of interfaces or plugins can change that, we anticipate 2022 will be hard on the industry.

5) 2022 will see the first public cloud vendor make their services available on another public cloud

This will trigger an arms race to disaggregate the most valuable capabilities from the overall service - from analytics to databases and AI/ML frameworks like NLP. We also predict that it won't be AWS to break the seal - they have no incentive here. The net result will be good for customers, as it will have the effect of accelerating the trend of commoditization of cloud infrastructure and will pressure economics across the board.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anand Babu Periasamy is Co-Founder and CEO at MinIO, a pioneer in high-performance, Kubernetes-native object storage. In addition to this role, he is an active investor and advisor to a wide range of technology companies, from H2O.ai and Manetu, where he serves on the board, to advisor/investor roles with Humio, Isovalent, Starburst, Yugabyte, Tetrate, Postman, Storj, Procurify and Helpshift.

Prior to MinIO, Anand Babu co-founded Gluster in 2005 to commoditize scalable storage systems. As CTO, he was the primary architect and strategist for the development of the Gluster file system, a pioneer in software-defined storage. He holds a Computer Science Engineering degree from Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu, India and is one of the leading proponents and thinkers on the subject of open source software - articulating the difference between the philosophy and business model.