Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2022. Read them in this 14th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Ransomware, Metadata, and Federated Global Namespaces – What You Should Be Thinking About for 2022
By Andrew Hall, CEO, StrongBox
As we kick off the new year, we’ve considered the trends we think will impact your data center in 2022. Our goal is to help our customers and partners successfully navigate the inevitable technology changes in our rapidly changing world. We’d love the opportunity to discuss any of these trends in more detail with you, plus get your thoughts on our prognostications and other developments you feel will impact your operations.
Without further ado, here are three trends we feel you should be monitoring:
#1 – AI Will Play a Significant Role in Protecting an Organization’s Data from Ransomware
According to recent studies, 37 percent of organizations were victimized by ransomware in 2020, and the number of affected companies will continue to grow.
Our national and world economies have become dependent on access to digital information. The increasing use and acceptance of cryptocurrencies, IoT, physical supply chain, NFTs and digital supply chain, and other emerging digital technologies will cause a rising security risk for all types of environments, including on-premise, cloud, and hybrid. As a result, there will be an increased emphasis on how to best protect organizations and sensitive data, plus prevent serious impact to businesses and the customers they serve.
No single magic bullet will resolve all threats, but a well-thought-out strategy on how to protect the organization’s lifeblood will continue to be paramount. Over the next year, artificial intelligence (AI) will begin to play a more significant role. AI applied to data management will enable an organization to identify what files are important and impactful to the organization and classify them into areas such as: “critical,” “severe,” “impactful,” “limited impact,” and “not relevant.,” The ability to intelligently act on this classification to continually protect data and quickly — if not immediately — recover from incidents will be critical to reducing the negative financial and human impact on employees, customers, and vendors. Data management AI will become a regular part of an organization’s technology investment to thrive in this rapidly evolving environment.
#2 – Metadata is the Key to Future-Proofing Data
Data is growing at an unprecedented rate, and most organizations are moving away from storage-centric solutions to hybrid solutions. With that shift, it’s more important than ever to leverage the power of metadata. Properly implemented, metadata acts as a roadmap to give organizations the insights needed to control all of their data and storage resources. In hybrid environments and cloud environments, metadata can be used to help better manage “paradigm swings,” improve the organization’s data resilience, and reduce egress charges by targeting specific files. In 2022, organizations will increasingly leverage the power of metadata to future-proof their data and enable intelligence and unified data management across storage types from different vendors.
#3- Federated Global Namespaces to Rise in Importance as Organizations Adopt Hybrid and Distributed Environments
A global namespace (GNS) is essential for simplifying storage management and identifying multiple network-based file systems. A global namespace provides a unified view of data distributed across multiple file storage systems, allowing users to access and file data anywhere, regardless of physical location. When this system becomes federated, more than one previously distinct and disconnected storage management system can interoperate and benefit from truly synchronized data management on a global geographical scale. Over the next year, this will become essential as organizations continue to adopt hybrid and distributed environments. In addition, GNS will become increasingly important as organizations attempt to reorganize their IT, network, and storage environments to align with new needs and expectations to excel in this “new normal.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Hall, StrongBox CEO
Andrew is a customer-facing executive who brings thirty years of project leadership to StrongBox Data Solutions. Most recently he served as Managing Director of Insider Technologies Ltd (Manchester, UK), a company developing and supporting monitoring, tracking, and alerting products for central banks and government agencies. Previously he was President of ETI-NET, Inc. (Montreal Canada), deploying specialized business continuity solutions into major data centers globally.
