Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2023.  Read them in this 15th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Trends in Data Storage Across Edge, Data Center and Cloud Storage

By Jimmy Tam, CEO, Peer Software

As 2022 draws close, Peer Software looks at how companies continue to look for new ways to harness the power of data to gain valuable insights to meet the evolving needs of customers. The pervasive adoption of storage at the edge, the continued growth of virtual desktops in the cloud and the role of data fabric in data management will have significant implications in how data is stored. Below are Peer Software's predictions for 2023.

Storage at the Edge will Increase
By 2025, more than 40% of enterprise storage will be deployed at the edge, which is a significant increase from 15% in 2022. Infrastructure and operations leaders are moving storage beyond the data center toward the public cloud and the edge -  where the data is generated or consumed, rather than in a centralized environment. Although most enterprise organizations embrace infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud providers, they also realize that a significant part of the infrastructure services might remain on-premises, and would require edge storage data services. In 2023, we will see IT leaders implement best practices to prepare enterprise data center storage deployments to be edge ready.

Continued growth of virtual desktops in the cloud
Over the last two years, increased security threats, the mainstreaming of hybrid work and a more globally distributed workforce have driven a greater need for virtual desktops to support hybrid work styles. Organizations are adopting virtualization at a large scale due to its cost-effectiveness. And with supply chain issues still looming, procuring hardware remains a significant challenge. These factors will drive the growth of virtual desktops in 2023.

The supporting infrastructure, including network and storage resources, is hosted in the cloud. Like local VDI, end users can access their virtual desktop or application through client software installed on their local device or a web browser. In the new year, enterprise organizations will experience all the advantages virtual desktops in the cloud provide including remote office support, enhanced security, and simplified desktop management.

Data Fabric Takes Center Stage in Enterprise Data Management
Enterprise organizations want data to be in one place but collecting all the data into a single location continues to be a challenge. Physically copying the data from the different silos into another central repository takes time, effort, and money, and it requires a central IT team. The data fabric helps an enterprise take raw data and use it to gain valuable insights. It's ideal for geographically diverse organizations, as well as those with multiple data sources and complex issues. When implemented successfully, this architecture has the potential to transform a business. Modern challenges require modern solutions, and data center synchronization can help organizations in several ways. In 2023, IT leaders will move towards more data center synchronization to leverage the power of their accumulated data across a local, hybrid cloud and/or multi-cloud environment. By modernizing storage and data management, a data fabric creates significant efficiencies for business, management, and organizational practices.

AI and Machine Learning Make Data Lifecycle Management More Intelligent
Data is the driving force of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Vast quantities of training data enhance accuracy in the search for potentially predictive relationships. In the past, security solutions were predominantly reactive but that is changing. Machine learning and AI algorithms play a key role in this shift. While they are not a one-stop solution for all cybersecurity concerns, they are incredibly useful for rapidly automating decision-making processes and inferring patterns from data. These algorithms work by first learning from real-world data, analyzing normal behavior patterns and responding to deviations from that baseline norm. Traditional methodologies of backup to tape are also going away due to the level of effort and time it takes to restore from tape. Additionally with rich data and history stored in backup files, organizations will start to realize the benefits of backing up their data to either on-premises or cloud object storage and continuously analyzing that data to make it more useful to business decisions.

##

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jimmy Tam is the CEO of Peer Software. Before that, he was the Co-Founder of GR Print. He attended the University of California, Berkeley.