FUJIFILM INSIGHTS BLOG

As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) workloads begin to permeate and drive business processes and decision-making at all levels, effective data management is becoming imperative. Data needs to be stored for a long time and it needs to be available to be actively accessed during its lifespan.

Active archive solutions are ideal for managing information for AI and ML frameworks as they can provide customized optimization for storage, security, and performance. In addition, AI tools can be applied in an active archive to automate and streamline data management processes in various ways. For example, AI can cleanse, normalize, and categorize long-term data for AI workloads, automate metadata tagging and indexing for inactive data, and identify and archive sensitive information.

A new eBook from ESG Research, sponsored by the Active Archive Alliance, explores the general state of data archiving and the benefits and challenges shaping modern environments and strategies. It also examines how active archiving integrates into modern data archiving practices and the role it plays in determining the success of AI/ML initiatives.

Key findings include:

• On average, organizations have 6.7 PB of data on corporate servers, with 44% of the data on an active archive.
• Active archive data growth is in lock step with overall data growth; archive data doubling roughly every 3.5 years.
• AI/ML capabilities are a key accelerator for the adoption of active archives.
• The top three use cases for active archives are analytics, business efficiency, and cyber-resilience.

Ultimately, AI depends on well-organized data for success, which underscores why effective data management through an active archive is crucial for an AI future. Organizations without intelligent data management processes that feed into business intelligence workloads risk being left behind by competitors who do.

For more information, access the eBook here: Impact of AI/ML on Active Archiving.

Reading Time: 7 minutesStorage industry analysts are saying that 2023 will be remembered for its historic downturn in demand. This may be so, due to hyperscaler digestion of previous year’s capacity shipments. But a few things remain constant, such as the growth of data driven by the proliferation of new applications in the digital data sphere and things like data intensive AI/ML. You can also add in the steady expansion of IoT including video surveillance applications. Another constant is the increasing value of data that users want to keep more of and for longer periods of time. Users also want ready online access to that data giving rise to the popularity of cost-effective and energy-efficient active archive solutions. So here are my highlights for 2023 and really bold predictions for 2024!

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Reading Time: 4 minutesThe 17^th annual edition of the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center earlier this month with some 100 exhibitors and more than 3,000 registered attendees. FMS showcases the industry’s key applications, technologies, vendors, and innovative startups that are driving the multi-billion dollar high-speed memory and SSD markets. Started in 2006, FMS features the trends, innovations, and influencers driving the adoption of flash memory and other high-speed memory technologies that support demanding enterprise storage applications, high-performance computing, AI/ML, mobile and embedded systems from the edge to the core data center and the cloud.

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Reading Time: 5 minutes  I attended the International Security Conference West (ISC West) in Las Vegas last week. The show was well attended with some 20,000 visitors packing the aisles and mobbing the booths of some 650 vendors. The show covers everything from video surveillance to computer and communications security, to physical plant security, loss prevention, and more.  

A few items struck me as a first-time visitor to the show, namely, entire booths dedicated to gunshot detection devices and others dedicated to things like drone detection. It’s a sad sign of the times when security professionals have to install gunshot detection devices to improve response time and mitigate deadly intrusions. In the case of drone detection, if you are being spied upon from above, no worries drone detection radar can now electronically jam unmanned aerial vehicles and can even deliver a kill shot as a last resort.   

The other item most relevant to me was the fact that this industry stores almost all of its video surveillance content on expensive, energy-intensive hard disk drives. That’s a problem in general, but even more so when security professionals are being besieged by any number of new budget-draining threats like gun-toting intruders and nefarious aerial snoopers.  

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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.

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Reading Time: < 1 minuteArchival data is piling up faster than ever as organizations are quickly learning the value of analyzing vast amounts of previously untapped digital data. Industry studies consistently find that the vast majority of all digital data is rarely, if ever, accessed again after it is stored. However, this is changing now with the emergence of big data analytics made possible by Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that bring data back to life and tap its enormous value for improved efficiency and competitive advantage.

The need to securely store, search for, retrieve and analyze massive volumes of archival content is fueling new and more effective advancements in archive solutions. These trends are further compounded as an increasing number of businesses are approaching hyperscale levels with significant archival capacity requirements.

An active archive resolves complexity by leveraging the benefits of an intelligent data management layer, and an increasing number of effective software products that address this are now available. Access and management of data is getting more complex and is requiring modern strategies with intelligent data management techniques. These strategies and techniques are now being enhanced by AI to further improve and automate data management.

Download the Active Archive Alliance 2019 State of Active Archive Report to learn more about the state of the archive market and the expanding role the active archive plays.