Looking Ahead into 2023 for Top 5 Storage Trends

It’s that time of year again to look ahead at what the New Year might bring in terms of data storage. Looking back at our predictions for 2022 to see how well we did, I think we nailed 4 out 5.

• We predicted the importance of energy conservation in IT and that panned out as a power grid crisis emerged around the world.
• We predicted the pendulum would swing back from all cloud to hybrid cloud strategies mixing cloud plus traditional on-premises. That also came to fruition in part due to security concerns and TCO optimization with the realization that the cloud is easy to engage, but hard to pay for.
• We predicted the growing popularity of S3-compatible tape systems for object storage archiving and that happened with many vendors now offering the benefits of tape for object storage.
• We also got it right when we predicted that ransomware would not fade out, but everyone else got that right too.
• Where we missed was the prediction that LTO tape would become a strategic option in video surveillance content retention. But we were just early and will take another swing at that one for 2023!

So here we go…

Green IT Becomes Mandatory – 2023 will see IT operations under increasing scrutiny from investors, consumers, and stakeholders demanding meaningful carbon reduction initiatives. Mandates are already in place in the U.S. requiring Federal data centers to go carbon neutral, and other reporting requirements are likely forthcoming from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Reporting will go beyond traditional PUE (power utilization effectiveness) to include CUE (carbon utilization effectiveness) among many other metrics, with the need to carefully evaluate the embodied carbon of IT equipment.

At the same time, availability of power supply and tightening IT budgets will force reductions in energy consumption. Moving cold and infrequently accessed data to low-cost, energy-efficient automated tape offers a 97% reduction in CO2e and a 78% reduction in Total Cost of Ownership compared to equivalent volumes of HDD.

No Rest for Cybersecurity Teams- Most industry experts agree that ransomware is not going away and will only increase in sophistication, frequency and price tag. Expect 2023 to bring renewed focus from c-suite executives who are being held accountable for ensuring that IT operations — from computing to networking to storage — incorporate prudent cybersecurity measures. This will include AI-based malware detection capabilities while specific storage security measures will include a reduction in attack surface by moving static, infrequently accessed data from primary flash storage to secondary storage systems such as an active archive, incorporating automated tape libraries that support physical air gap.

Relentless Data Growth Propels Data Management Tools – The volume of unstructured data continues to explode from a multitude of sources, from sprawling IoT devices on the edge to the plethora of applications for nearly everything we humans do. In 2023 we will see more effective use of AI to analyze this data to support actionable, data-driven insights that lead to better business outcomes. Easy-to-use data management tools that can leverage metadata to facilitate queries and searches will gain in popularity. This ability will enable us to know what data we have, where to find it, and how to access it, share it and reuse it. Therefore, the value of data will continue to increase, resulting in storing more of it for longer periods of time. Automated tape systems will support the transition from petabytes to exabytes of files and objects located on-prem in core data centers, on the edge or, increasingly, on tape systems in the cloud as recent industry reports suggest. Today’s modern automated tape solutions will provide the necessary benefits of cost, sustainability, scalability, reliability and data protection to support these various models.

Active Archive Becomes a Necessity- Managing the data tsunami is becoming more than just a challenge with IT teams barely able to keep up with backup routines. In this data-driven world, IT teams will be compelled to strategically think archive, better yet, active archive. With intelligent data management, an active archive solution will allow for automated movement of data, based on user-defined policy, moving data from expensive, energy-intensive primary storage to eco-friendly, economy storage tiers such as automated tape systems. This frees up overwhelmed backup applications while maintaining ease of access to always online active archive content.

LTO Tape Finally Breaks into Video Surveillance- The case for LTO tape as a second tier for video surveillance retention, behind tier one HDD, can best be made by paraphrasing recent and excellent commentary by a Toshiba executive on this subject. “Regarding video surveillance data storage, security systems are now comprised of a much greater number of cameras with higher resolution. The main priorities for customers in this segment are to keep TCO at an absolute minimum while curbing system energy consumption from an opex and sustainability perspective”. LTO tape as a second-tier target for aging and less likely to be accessed video surveillance content can reduce total video retention TCO by up to 50% while consuming 87% less energy than HDD systems. LTO tape for video surveillance data storage will be a solution just waiting to happen in 2023 and beyond. We just need some visibility and awareness for the solution!

That concludes the Top 5 predictions for 2023, hoping for 5 out 5 this year!