Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2023. Read them in this 15th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
A Look Ahead: Unstructured Data as a Global Resource for Distributed Organizations and Decentralized Workflows
By Molly Presley, Senior Vice President, Marketing,
Hammerspace
Looking ahead to
2023, this will be the year distributed organizations can realize the value and
insights of unstructured data faster and more easily. This trend will change
the face of the industry and shift the conversation from how you store your
data to how you can use your data to gain valuable insights, drive a new
business model, or create and innovate new products and services.
Distributed
organizations seek automated and secure ways
to use their data from the edge, across data centers, and to the cloud, with the application or cloud service
provider of their choice. Organizations will now be able to have the same
unified access, management, utilization, and rationalization of unstructured
data that is currently standard for structured data thanks to unified data
management, which traditionally has been unavailable for unstructured data due
to a lack of a unifying metadata control plane and automated data
orchestration.
Trends:
1. IT supply chain challenges will compel new approaches
to data management.
With supply chain disruptions caused by factors such as the
COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical events, transportation and
labor disruptions, and more, organizations need new approaches to easing
the impacts. In 2023, more organizations will look to move their data and
workloads to where the technology is readily available. For example, if certain
hardware or compute resources are hard to source, an organization can simply
move its data to a different data center or a cloud with more capacity.
Organizations will benefit greatly from the ability to move data and workloads
to available technology rather than supplying technology to the data/workload
location.
2. To access sufficient compute resources, organizations
need the ability to automate Burst to the Cloud.
IT teams can no longer depend on Moore's Law to continue
accelerating compute performance at the same exponential pace it has in the
past. It will no longer be possible to win the innovation battle with
generic software that relies on commodity hardware to run at the required
speed. As Moore's Law slows and supply chains remain backlogged,
data-driven innovators will need to be able to integrate cloud compute into
their workloads to keep data-driven workflows on pace.
3. Access to software engineering talent must be possible
from anywhere in the world.
Organizations must capitalize on talent located anywhere in
the world. Automation tools for remote data access and decentralized data
workflows will become increasingly critical. Data will need to be a globally
accessible resource for the workforce.
4. Edge will no longer be used only for data capture but
also for data use.
With the Internet of Things (IoT), everything is now
interconnected. Customers and the workforce are now spread across the
globe, and most people will soon have access to broadband internet thanks to
SpaceX Starlink and Amazon's Kuiper Project. Edge devices will continue
to evolve with increased memory and compute power, allowing their use for data
processing rather than just data capturing. This data will need to be cataloged
with intelligent metadata for remote users and applications to understand and
use it.
5. The use of software-defined and open-source
technologies will intensify.
With the continued development and application of
software-defined and open-source technologies, the adoption of
software-defined and open-source technologies will grow over proprietary
technologies.
6. Metadata will be recognized as the holy grail of data
orchestration, utilization, and management.
Organizations will increasingly rely on metadata that is
directly integrated into workflows and applications. Metadata usage will help
bridge the various storage silos and locations to help solve today's data
challenges, including distributed supply chain, cloud, edge, etc.
7. A shift away from hardware-centric infrastructures
toward data-driven architectures.
Instead of accommodating traditional hardware-driven
infrastructures and the constraints they bring, organizations will organize
their architecture around globally accessible data environments designed for
their workflows or data needs. Data-driven architectures will create a
data-layer bridge across all silos.
8. Data Architects - the upcoming King of the IT Jungle.
2023 will see the emergence of the data architect role.
Data architects, as opposed to data scientists who focus on BI and analytics,
utilize metadata expertise to solve the business needs of gathering, tracking,
and making data accessible - when and where it is needed. This approach is new
and necessary in the world of unstructured data, which is workflow-driven, has
massive unstructured data volumes, and is typically distributed across a
variety of different storage media and locations.
9. True storage performance that spans across all storage
tiers.
Previously, organizations had to work with multiple data
silos for high-performance and cost-effective storage tiers. Furthermore,
the data management options for moving data across geographic locations or to
alternate storage tiers made data access both slow and costly. New
software capabilities will shatter long-held architectural paradigms as
high-performance global data access becomes a reality, freeing workloads from
data silos and slow data, regardless of location, and providing
high-performance data anywhere in the world. These advancements will be
critical for artificial intelligence, machine learning, entertainment content
creation and distribution, research, new product development, and more.
Enterprises and research organizations are increasingly
decentralizing their data, information technology systems, and workforces.
Decentralization introduces new challenges, and organizations that adapt their
strategies can benefit from global shifts. As we enter 2023, they will need to
replace inefficient manual data management with cost-effective data resources
serving multiple data and workforce locations. Organizations that transform
their global management strategies will be able to keep pace with a changing
world and gain a significant competitive advantage.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hammerspace SVP of
Marketing, Molly Presley
Molly brings over 15 years of
product and growth marketing leadership experience to the Hammerspace team. She
has led the marketing organization and strategy at fast-growth innovators such
as Pantheon Platform, Qumulo, Quantum Corporation, DataDirect Networks (DDN),
and Spectra Logic. She was also responsible for the go-to-market strategy for
SaaS, hybrid cloud, and data center solutions across various data-intensive
verticals and use cases. At Hammerspace, Presley leads the marketing
organization and inspires data creators and users to take full advantage of a
truly global data environment.