FUJIFILM INSIGHTS BLOG

At least for now, climate change is getting worse. We actually had the hottest days on Earth this July with a record global average of 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit. That does not sound that hot but it’s an average including summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere. These were the hottest days since 1979 at least, and broke records previously set in 2016 of 62.46 degrees F.

Severe weather could be seen across the U.S. from record-setting triple-digit heat waves out West and down South plus record rainfall and flooding in the Northeast with some locations getting 10 to 12 inches of rain in a single day. Extreme weather can be found in Asia, Europe, really all over the world. Global warming plus an El Nino event where the Pacific Ocean is releasing excessive heat are to be blamed. Scientists are sounding the alarm again that we must curb carbon emissions or we can expect more of the same, only worse, in the years and decades ahead.

Read more

The origin of the phrase “any port in a storm” is not very clear or well documented, but the definition is.  When you are facing some difficulty, you need to accept any solution without waiting for a perfect solution.

Such may have been the case at the outset of the great COVID pandemic of 2019 (and 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 too). When it came to dealing with the challenges of storing ever-increasing volumes of valuable data and the new phenomena of work-from-home, the cloud looked like a pretty fast and safe port in the COVID storm, and in some cases, it was and still is.

Prior to COVID-19, the term “cloud repatriation” appeared often in the press as it turned out that cloud was not a panacea for everything. But COVID understandably created short-term tactical storage strategies often resulting in a flight to the cloud.

However, the notion of cloud repatriation seems to be making a comeback, perhaps as a result of the prevailing conditions of economic uncertainty, geo-political tension, inflation, tightening budgets, cyber threats, and other factors. But it’s no longer a question of cloud vs on-premises. Savvy IT managers have the option of a more strategic hybrid cloud approach where the best of public cloud plus on-premises infrastructure provides maximum flexibility and value.

Read more

Modern data tape continues to be fueled by significant technological and architectural innovations that reinforce its ability to deliver low-cost storage with high capacity and faster data transfer rates. The Tape Storage Council released its 2020 State of the Industry Report featuring new insights into the capabilities and benefits of tape storage in addressing the ever-increasing growth of data.

Highlights from the report include the following:

Tape Addresses Storage-Intensive Applications and Workflows
Tape is addressing the storage and data security requirements for Big Data, cloud storage services, entertainment, hyperscale computing, IoT, and surveillance that are all projected to drive enormous high-value storage demand.

Growing Role in Hyperscale, Hyperscale Lite and Cloud Environments
As data continues to grow, hyperscale and cloud suppliers are integrating tape storage devices into cloud infrastructure to achieve cost containment and address enormous energy concerns.

Object Storage and Tape Combine to Address Archival Demand
Simple, long-term, data storage management with low-cost, long-lived tape automation allows for objects and metadata to be efficiently read and written on tape in its native form. Cloud providers are using object storage solutions for their archive services storing large amounts of archival data, cost-efficiently on tape.

Access the full report here: Tape Has Become a Strategic Imperative in the Mass Storage Landscape.