Software defined datacenters, integrated backup appliances, and SoCloMo (social media, cloud computing and mobility) are likely to trend the market of Information Storage and Management in 2014, says Tarun Kaura, director, Technology Sales, India and SAARC, Symantec.
The explosion of information has further challenged the existing solutions deployed in enterprises. IDC forecasts that the volume of digital data will grow 40 – 50 percent per year clearly indicating that Information Storage and Management will remain in vogue and a big focus area for CIOs across sectors.
With cloud based storage, backup and disaster recovery become commonplace, managing and protecting data will also be a focus area for enterprises and SMBs.
Social media, cloud computing and mobility (SoCloMo) will continue to be disruptive and challenge for businesses with an immense amount of information spread across various platforms including public clouds and mobile devices. The rising volume of data stored in these platforms will force SMBs to implement an effective Information Management strategy in place.
Symantec also predicts that the effects of social media, cloud computing and mobility will play an important role in transforming the way datacenters currently operate in the coming year.
According to Symantec, 2014 will be the year where ‘Software Defined Everything’ will start taking shape with companies with trends such as Software Defined Storage and Software Defined Networking leading this charge. The concept of Software Defined Datacenter (SDDC), which virtualizes the server, network, and storage levels, is gaining more prominence.
Cloud storage is gaining popularity mainly because of the flexibility, simplicity and fault tolerance. Symantec’s 2013 Avoiding the Hidden Costs of the Cloud survey found that more than 90 percent of Enterprises in India are at least discussing cloud. In 2014, we believe that Cloud Storage will be seen as a more important requirement for SMBs to better manage their information.
Companies will be replacing their traditional solutions with integrated systems such as integrated backup appliances, to deal with the vast amount of information they have, which is only set to increase in 2014.
Another trend that is garnering promise in information storage and management is ‘Deduplication Everywhere’ as it lets companies choose the point in the backup process deduplication needs to be performed. Symantec identifies two types of deduplication: client deduplication, where data is deduplicated at the client/source before being sent across the network; and the target / media server, where the data is deduplicated at the media server/target before being saved to disk or tape.
eDiscovery is gaining prominence among companies in heavily regulated sectors that are mandated to electronically store information for several years. With regulatory guidelines continuing to tighten the rules around data breaches and consumer data, it is critical for companies to put eDiscovery technologies to not just store and manage information but also ensure its timely discovery and retrieval to meet compliance and governance requirements.
