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Castagna: Five
(semi) serious
storage predictions
for 2016
Managing the information that drives the enterprise
Sinclair: Building
a modern storage snapshot 2 HOT SPOTS / sinclair
infrastructure
Some companies The meaning of
Matchett:
dragging their feet modern storage
Looking back on
2016 predictions on sync n share
About us
Castagna: Five
(semi) serious
The future of
storage predictions
for 2016
Prediction #1: Contain thyself
Toigo: The zetta-
bytes are coming! storage in 2016 Dont blame those poor storage marketers for overworking
and overusing the word containertheyre really grop-
12 scintillating Its a new year and we couldnt ing for the latest, greatest buzzword now that virtual
storage startups
resist. These predictions will shake has lost much of its cachet. Thats because everything is
up the storage world in 2016. Or not. virtualized nowstorage, servers, networks, data cen-
Snapshot 1:
Nearly half using terseven reality. So theres really nothing left to com-
sync n share pare virtual to. Virtual is in danger of becoming the new
For DR, think cloud
non-virtual until something even more virtual comes
along. Hey, maybe containers are more virtual than vir-
Snapshot 2: Some tual. In any event, get ready to be containerized in 2016.
companies lagging
with sync n share
as the calendar winds its way down to the end of yet And expect the future of data storage to include a good
another year, I take an oath that I will not (absolutely dollop of DevOps to accompany those containers along
Sinclair: Building not!) do one of those predictions-for-the-new-year col- with some Agile agitprop.
a modern storage
infrastructure
umns. And just moments laterthis happens every year
like clockworkI start to jot down some future of data
Matchett: storage-y things that I think might happen or maybe want Prediction #2: WHITHER NetApp?
Looking back on
2016 predictions to happen. Not predictions, mind you, just sort of things Dell buys EMC. HP develops a split personality. IBM looks
that might happen to the cloud. And Western Digital has turned into a com-
About us
And since Im already in a free-fall slide down the slip- pulsive buyer of flash companies. What about NetApp?
pery slope of New Year predictions, Im not going to hold Lets face it, the last couple of years havent been kind to
back or play it safe. So, with my first prediction for whats NetApp with dwindling sales and the ever-imminent ar-
going to happen in storage in 2016, Im going to crawl way rival of an all-flash array thats getting to seem more and
out onto the skinny end of a limb and predict that youre more like a road company production of Waiting for Godot.
going to hear the word container a lot in 2016. By a lot, Even worse, with all those hip, young startups flashing
I mean constantly, without end, over and over again, until their solid-state wares, NetApp is beginning to look like a
your ears bleed. stodgy old grandpa in a cardigan sweater.
Castagna: Five
the same sentence, as those two techs have been paired As 2016 draws to a close, Ill swear on a stack of VMAX
(semi) serious to create the fastest, most-efficient method of disaster user manuals that I absolutely wont do another predic-
storage predictions recovery yet. tions column on the future of data storage. Then I will.
for 2016
And if thats not enough, its dirt cheap compared to Have a great 2016. n
Toigo: The zetta- most other alternatives. If youre not looking at cloud-
bytes are coming!
based DR now, put it on your 2016 to-do list. RICH CASTAGNA is TechTargets VP of Editorial.
12 scintillating
storage startups
Snapshot 1:
Nearly half using
sync n share
Snapshot 2: Some
companies lagging
with sync n share
Sinclair: Building
a modern storage
infrastructure
Matchett:
Looking back on
2016 predictions
About us
Castagna: Five
(semi) serious
The zettabytes
storage predictions
for 2016
mediumflash, disk, optical, tape and cloud storage
win unless
Toigo: The zetta- though this view is clearly in error. Clouds are a service
bytes are coming!
delivery model; they are not a storage technology in and
of themselves.
12 scintillating
As youve probably heard, data
storage startups What is really interesting is listening to cloudies talk
growth is totally out of hand.
about data burgeon. They are actually more concerned
Snapshot 1: But, there are options available
Nearly half using about it than are many private businesses I visit, probably
sync n share to beat the zettabytes. because they expect to catch more of the growth of zetta-
For DR, think cloud
bytes of new data on their chips and spindlesand maybe
cartridgesthan traditional business data centers.
Snapshot 2: Some A recent presentation by Microsoft provided a
companies lagging
with sync n share
back-of-envelope calculation on the state of storage and
analysts claim that the volume of data requiring safe the capability of the industry to handle the data deluge.
Sinclair: Building haven in business data centers will continue an upward With a production capacity of only about 500 exabytes per
a modern storage
infrastructure
trajectory that could decimate your storage infrastructure year, the speaker noted, flash memory would have neither
by 2020. According to industry watchers, 2009 saw the the capacity nor the cost metrics to store all the bits. Even
Matchett: creation of about one zettabyte (ZB) of new data. This vol- if disk manufacturers made good on the promise of 24 TB
Looking back on
2016 predictions ume climbed to 2.75 zettabytes in 2012, then on to about 8 HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording) drives by 2020
ZBs in 2015. Now, IDC and others are suggesting that be- or sooner, again, we would be looking at a capacity short-
About us
tween 20 and 60 zettabytes of new data will be created by fall and extraordinary cost to store the zettabytes of data
humans and machines by 2020. That will be a nightmare being created. The optical industry, despite Facebooks
for both private and public data center operators who have interest, might get us to a 1 TB BluRay disk by 2020and
not prepared for a Z-pocalypse. that is a stretch, as well as being very insufficient to meet
Some folks have been inclined to spin these projections the storage challenge.
to underscore the promise of, and to project a bright fu- Ultimately, Microsoft concludes, it will be up to tape
ture for, cloud storage services. In conferences and trade technology to shoulder the lions share of the storage of
shows, clouds are treated like a magical fifth storage all the new data.
Twelve startups
to watch in 2016
Caching, cloud backup, hyper-convergence
and object storage spawned startups in 2015. spurred by the growing complexity of storing and manag-
Here are 12 to keep your eye on. ing data, a rash of data storage company startups emerged
by Garry Kranz
in 2015 that use flash, disk and cloud storage to streamline
data mobility and management across storage tiers. Listed
alphabetically, heres our list of the top 12 storage startups
to watch in 2016.
ClearSky Data
Headquarters: Boston
CEO: Ellen Rubin
Flagship product: ClearSky Data Global Storage Network
Product launch: August 2015
Category: Cloud storage, primary storage capacity
optimization, tiered storage
Key feature: Integrates on-premises and data center
storage with cloud replication
home
storage january 2016 8
Home the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) cloud. The data simultaneously writing data to multiple nodes. Cohesity
Castagna: Five
storage company aims its global storage network at enter- bundles OASIS on a 2U appliance that serves as the build-
(semi) serious prises with at least 100 TB of primary storage. ClearSky ing block for a minimum four-node cluster of hybrid flash
storage predictions launched with regional point of presence data centers storage. Each node supplies up to 96 TB of hard disk drive
for 2016
in Boston, Philadelphia and Las Vegas and is poised to (HDD) storage and 6.4 TB of flash capacity. Cohesity data
Toigo: The zetta- expand to other metro markets. The flash-based appli- storage technology provides continuous snapshots and
bytes are coming!
ances replicate production storage via Gigabit Ethernet granular recovery point objectives.
12 scintillating to a ClearSky data center, which in turn writes data for
storage startups redundancy to a logical bucket of S3 object storage.
Snapshot 1:
Nearly half using Datrium Inc.
sync n share Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.
For DR, think cloud
Cohesity CEO: Brian Biles
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif. Flagship product: Datrium DVX Server Flash
Snapshot 2: Some CEO: Mohit Aron Storage System
companies lagging
Flagship product: Cohesity Data Platform Product launch: July 2015
with sync n share
Product launch: June 2015 Category: Backup for virtual servers, solid state
Sinclair: Building Category: Backup, disaster recovery, cache appliance, storage network virtualization
a modern storage
infrastructure
copy data management Key feature: Flash management virtualization
Key feature: Converged secondary storage software for VMware
Matchett:
Looking back on
2016 predictions After helping usher in hyper-convergence as founder of Founded by former executives at data storage companies
Nutanix, Cohesity founder and CEO Mohit Aron set his Data Domain and VMware, Datrium gears its storage vir-
About us
sights on data convergence. The Cohesity Data Platform tualization platform mainly to VMware shops.DVX uses
consolidates fragmented secondary storage on a single host-based flash for persistent storage, centralizing stor-
appliance. Analytics, archiving and data protection work- age functionality within server cores. Datrium supports
flows can run on the Cohesity system while quality-of-ser- server-based enterprise SSDs or consumer-grade flash
vice (QoS) software prevents resource contention. The drives. Its DVX flash management software combines
system runs on Cohesitys OASIS (Open Architecture for RAID protection and data reduction on ESXi hosts. DVX
Scalable, Intelligent Storage) operating system, which in- communicates via a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) inter-
cludes the object-based SnapFS distributed file system for face with a 2U NetShelf appliance with up to 48 TB of
Snapshot 2: Some
companies lagging
with sync n share
Sinclair: Building
a modern storage
infrastructure
Matchett:
Looking back on
2016 predictions
About us
+2914s57
Castagna: Five
(semi) serious
storage predictions
for 2016
Toigo: The zetta- D Does your company use any D Which of these public file sync-
bytes are coming!
file sync-and-share services? and-share services do you use?
12 scintillating
storage startups
Snapshot 1:
In-house 47%
file sync-
Nearly half using and-share Google Drive
sync n share service
Dont use 14%
For DR, think cloud
any file 46%
sync-and- 57% Dropbox
share
Snapshot 2: Some services
companies lagging Public
with sync n share 29% file sync- 27%
and-share Microsoft OneDrive
Sinclair: Building
service
a modern storage
24%
37
infrastructure
Box
Matchett:
Looking back on
2016 predictions
21%
iCloud
About us
4%
D Percentage of respondents who plan to SugarSync
use Google Drive for file sync and share
3%
Ctera Portal
The real deal: based on tape backup, with secondary backup tapes stored
offsite. This model can incur significant downtime, as
Cloud DR
tapes must be retrieved before data and applications can
be restored. Organizations that required faster restore
times replicated data to in their own secondary facilities,
Cloud-based DR has emerged as an affordable, or used shared services offered by DR specialists that pro-
flexible method for providing application vided on-demand recovery capabilities. However, these
availability following a disaster event. models were very expensive.
By chris evans The Internet, virtualization and the evolution of public
clouds has provided a much more practical opportunity
for businesses of all sizes to implement a BC/DR plan
without heavily investing in additional data center space.
Operations can be moved to the cloud on demand as
pablographix@iStock
home
storage january 2016 16
Home required, via a cloud-based disaster recovery service,
Castagna: Five
either in a controlled fashion or as part of an unplanned
Virtualization and the Internet have
(semi) serious emergency. As such, it is more appropriate to talk about
enabled applications to be mirrored
storage predictions business continuity as the process of ensuring IT services
for 2016 to the cloud with nothing more than a
are continuously available, with disaster recovery being few clicks of a mouse. Its never been
Toigo: The zetta- the process of migrating services to a secondary location. easier to protect your applications
bytes are coming! without a secondary data center.
12 scintillating
storage startups Cloud DR strengths
Today, applications are likely to be much more widely
Snapshot 1:
Nearly half using distributed, running in virtualized environments or (in the business. This means meeting RTO (recovery time
sync n share the future) on containers. This has changed the backup objectives) and RPO (recovery point objectives) metrics
For DR, think cloud
paradigm and shops have more flexibility to recover all on an application-to-application basis. Depending on an
or part of IT services where required. With a cloud-based organizations specific RTO/RPO requirements, there are
Snapshot 2: Some disaster recovery service, businesses can: three main cloud DR models:
companies lagging
with sync n share
n Provide continuity for their operational services, n Data only. The DR process focuses on ensuring a backup
Sinclair: Building regardless of where they are delivered from copy of data is available on the cloud platform and rep-
a modern storage
n Perform tactical failover to secondary services in the resents the lowest level of recovery. This means protecting
infrastructure
event of a hardware or software failure in some (or all) data such as that sitting on file servers, including home di-
Matchett: of their IT systems rectories and shared folders. In the event of a disaster, the
Looking back on
n Perform controlled failover of workloads to enable data can be accessed from the DR location in the cloud.
2016 predictions
maintenance of other components such as the network Depending on the amount of data that must be restored,
About us
or the environmental infrastructure downtime can be significant and even require physically
n Migrate workloads to cope with unplanned shipping data back to the primary site on an appliance to
demand or growth restore.
n Test DR capabilities on demand with no impact
Castagna: Five
viding the cloud services, additional network capacity,
Despite the simplicity of cloud
(semi) serious licensing dedicated backup software and extra application
DR, there are challenges around
storage predictions licenses. All of these may vary depending on the way in
for 2016 networking, security, licensing and
which cloud DR is delivered. application design that may require
Toigo: The zetta- some upfront investment to use
bytes are coming! these new services.
available from vendors such as Zerto which integrate into or per VM? Are there additional charges for running in
the hypervisor and replicate all I/O to the cloud instance. DR mode?
Snapshot 2: Some
companies lagging
with sync n share
Sinclair: Building
a modern storage
infrastructure
Matchett:
Looking back on
2016 predictions
About us
Castagna: Five
Snapshot 2
Companies not using sync and share are taking their time to implement
(semi) serious
storage predictions
for 2016
Toigo: The zetta- D Does your company plan to start D What products did your company
bytes are coming!
using a file sync-and-share service use to create its internal file sync-
12 scintillating in the next 12 months? and-share system?
storage startups
Snapshot 2: Some
companies lagging
with sync n share
Sinclair: Building
a modern storage
11
Yes, an
internal
file sync-
and-share
8%
81% Code42
Commvault 9%
11%
20
infrastructure
system AppSense 9%
Druva 4%
D Percentage of do-it-yourselfers who plan
to use Syncplicity for in-house file sync RES Hyperdrive 3%
and share
Egnyte 1%
Castagna: Five
(semi) serious
Tomorrows
storage predictions
for 2016
When looking for speed to address the needs of low-la-
workloads need
Toigo: The zetta- tency and high-transactional workloads, the answer often
bytes are coming!
falls to solid-state storage. Whether the best product ends
smart storage
12 scintillating up being an all-flash array, a hybrid array, or a server-side
storage startups product depends on specific workload needs. And when it
comes to the challenge of scalability, file- or object-based
Snapshot 1: We frequently hear about modern
Nearly half using with scale-out architectures are often the answer. How-
storage infrastructure, but what does
sync n share ever, storage architectures that offer infrastructure flex-
that mean? And what should it mean?
For DR, think cloud
ibility and data intelligence are more likely to address
modern IT needs than data storage types that offer speed
Snapshot 2: Some or scale alone.
companies lagging
with sync n share
Sinclair: Building when researching storage demands with IT executives, Data storage types
a modern storage
infrastructure
one theme I commonly encounter is a desire to transition must grow with workloads
to a modern data storage architecture. Typically, when Different workloads have different storage requirements,
Matchett: I hear this, my immediate follow-up questions are, What and as those workloads evolve, storage must as well. The
Looking back on
2016 predictions do you mean by modern? and How will you know when optimal media or infrastructure types will likely change
you get there? over the course of datas lifecycle. Storage systems that of-
About us
With technology advancing rapidly, identifying the fer the flexibility to present consistent data access despite
data storage types that would comprise a modern storage these infrastructure changes simply offer the potential to
system may not be as easy as it used to be. These days, better tailor the product to the workload and therefore
the two parameters that dictate storage purchasing deci- offer more value. For example, off-premises public cloud
sions are typically speed and scale. So, depending on your storage offers different benefits than on premises, but
needs, simply upgrading to the next generation of storage keeping public and private storage types isolated limits
controllers or adopting the next advance of Fibre Channel the benefits that can be achieved as business and workload
bandwidth may not be good enough. requirements change.
Castagna: Five
(semi) serious
storage in 2016?
Toigo: The zetta- I said all-flash arrays would start beating out hybrids
bytes are coming!
for tier 1 workloads. And, in fact, as flash gets cheaper
and denser and folks weigh the Opex of maintaining
12 scintillating Predictions on how storage techs will
storage startups mixed-storage environments, weve even seen all-flash
evolve in the upcoming year based on
arrays in use for tier 2 workloads. Taneja Group research
Snapshot 1: Taneja Group research.
Nearly half using conducted in 2015 showed enterprises have big plans to
sync n share migrate to flash across the board. But, I didnt call out what
For DR, think cloud
now seems obviousthat newly engineered hybrid arrays
would be designed for all-flash performance and still offer
Snapshot 2: Some intelligent auto-tiering to lesser media to optimize capac-
companies lagging
with sync n share
its hard to make stunning predictions on the future of ity and cost. I think well need to redraw category defini-
data storage that are certain to come true, but its that tions this year to help clarify if an array is an all-flash or full
Sinclair: Building time of year and Im going to step out on that limb again. flash-engineered hybrid, as opposed to just flash-capable
a modern storage
infrastructure
Ill review my predictions from last year as I goafter all, (i.e., you can stick in some SSDs).
how much can you trust me if Im not on target year after The reason I might have overlooked this a year ago
Matchett: year? (Yikes!) might have stemmed from something quite sillymany
Looking back on
2016 predictions Last year, I said the total data storage market would stay vendors have since told us they had to create an all-flash
flat despite big growth in unstructured data. Id have to say SKU and ship hybrid-capable arrays with all-flash in order
About us
that seems to be true, if not actually dropping. to be counted as performance tier 1 flash by some analyst
Despite lots of new entrants in the market, the average firms. So, even though they could combine comparable
vendor margin in storage is narrowing with software- performance with some cost-agility tiering, they wouldnt
defined variants showing up everywhere, open-source be presented and compared side-by-side with all-flash
alternatives nibbling at the edges, commodity-based ap- products. Thats just ridiculous. Valid storage comparisons
pliances becoming the rule, and ever-cheaper usable ought to be based on actual capabilities, performance and
flash products improving performance and density at the cost, not SKUs. All-flash products might generally still
same time. hold an edge on consistency and Opex and hybrids might
Sinclair: Building How many storage products are too many? Application-centric storage taking over
a modern storage
infrastructure
I hinted that there were too many storage products in the One of the bigger trends I predicted in the future of data
market without enough differentiation. This hasnt re- storage is well underway as we mark the broader move
Matchett: sulted yet in many vendor consolidation moves, although toward storage that is increasingly application-centric,
Looking back on
2016 predictions Id count EMC and Dell as a big one in progress. Also, HPE driven more directly by application needs than merely
seemed to throw down a gauntlet by creating a new en- consumed as generic block or file services. For example,
About us
terprise-focused organization with complete end-to-end every vendor is gearing up its VMware Virtual Volumes
products and services. This year, I wouldnt be surprised support that enables provisioning, operations and qual-
to see some additional big mergers and acquisitions, or as ity of service per virtual machine. Going further, we are
in HPEs case what I might call enterprise clarification. starting to see new data-aware storage offerings that use
NetApp seems vulnerable with everyone aiming at their extra metadata over block and file services to optimize
core NAS business, while IBM is on a warpath to ener- performance/capacity, track usage, support infinite ver-
gize its enterprise products. And even though (or maybe sioning or snapshots, and enhance security. Here is an easy
because) VCs seem desperate to find and fund potential predictionarrays will continue to get smarter!
SearchSMBStorage.com
Matchett: About TechTarget: TechTarget publishes media for information technology
SearchSolidStateStorage.com
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Executive Editor Andrew Burton of news, advice and analysis about the technologies, products and processes crucial
2016 predictions
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commentary and advice. At IT Knowledge Exchange, our social community, you can
About us staff Writer Garry Kranz get advice and share solutions with peers and experts.
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