FUJIFILM INSIGHTS BLOG

Data Storage

Flape (Flash plus Tape) in the Spotlight Again at Flash Memory Summit

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The 17th 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.

Read more

Read More

How Tape Systems Help Scope 3 Carbon Emissions from Cloud Service Providers

Reading Time: 5 minutes

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

Read More

5 Key Takeaways from New 2023 Ransomware Trends Report

Reading Time: 4 minutes

There are a plethora of studies and reports on cyber security and ransomware out in the marketplace, but I always enjoy reading and respect the findings of Jason Buffington, VP of Market Strategy at Veeam and his team. Their recently released 2023 Global Report on Ransomware Trends details lessons learned from 1,200 ransomware victims in 2022. You will want to download the full report here, but in the meantime, below are 5 key takeaways that I found compelling and aligns with other market research we have engaged in.

Read more

Read More

The Benefits of a 2-Tier Video Storage Solution for Video Surveillance Infrastructures

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Video surveillance has become an essential tool in many industries, from law enforcement to retail, transportation, and critical infrastructure. The ability to capture and analyze video footage has enabled organizations to enhance their security, prevent crimes, optimize operations, and make data-driven decisions.

However, with the proliferation of high-definition cameras, the exponential growth of video data, and the increasing demand for longer retention periods, managing video surveillance storage has become a significant challenge for many IT and security departments.

Rather than storing all video data on expensive, energy-intensive, high-performance storage devices such as hard disk drives, organizations can leverage a 2-tiered approach that provides for the quick access of the most recent video and the availability of all recorded video no matter when it was originally stored. This approach can significantly reduce storage costs, optimize system performance, reduce carbon footprint, and simplify video data management.

Read more

Read More

5 Facts that Chief Sustainability Officers Need to Know about Data Storage

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Recently I had the opportunity to meet with a newly appointed Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) at a major scientific research organization. In this new position that seems to be trending across many industries, this CSO has been tasked with the overall responsibility for understanding the organization’s energy profile and how its carbon footprint is spread across its many different departments and then to figure out what actions can be taken to help achieve its carbon reduction goals. With this understanding in place, the CSO will proceed to put downward pressure on the department heads to make meaningful change.

Given this background, the purpose of my call was to explain the role that today’s modern data tape can play in reducing power consumption and associated carbon footprint in data centers. Since this CSO really had no experience in large scale data operations, she was eager to listen given her need to start looking at every department to quickly identify opportunities for energy and carbon reduction. She will go after the low-hanging fruit first, but eventually no stone will be left unturned if her organization is to meet their aggressive sustainability goals.

Read more

Read More

Active Archive Alliance 2023 Report Showcases Modern Strategies for Managing Ever-Growing Data

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Active Archive Alliance recently launched its 2023 State of the Industry Report: Effective Data Management Through Active Archives. The report focuses on how an active archive model solves data growth challenges and provides today’s organizations with a way to manage and access their archival data cost-effectively.

At the center of an active archive resides an intelligent data management system. This software system plays the central role of automatically placing data where it belongs for cost, performance, and workload priorities. The data management layer uses technologies such as metadata and global namespaces to make data accessible, searchable, and retrievable on whatever storage platform or media it may reside.

Key benefits include:

  • An essential active archive principle asserts that today’s enterprises need online access to legacy data. Some use cases may need fast access; in other instances, a longer retrieval time is acceptable. The organization determines its access needs and permissions for users and groups.
  • Cost Savings. Through intelligent data management software, an active archive moves inactive data to low-cost storage. For some organizations, data management software can tier older data to warm storage such as hard drives. Then when, by policy, data has aged sufficiently, files can move to more cost-effective storage such as economy disk, tape, optical or even the cloud.
  • An active archive can supply a wide range of security features and cyber resiliency capabilities to secure and protect data from cyber threats facing today’s businesses and institutions. Because archival data typically remains unchanged, administrators may use WORM (Write Once, Read Many) or view-only mode features to prevent data from being deleted or overwritten, safeguarding data’s integrity, availability, and confidentiality.

In addition to these benefits, an active archive provides technical leaders the flexibility to adapt to new industry trends and growth areas such as sustainability, artificial intelligence, and edge computing. This flexibility helps enterprises thrive with possibilities for market leadership, increased revenue, and competitive advantages.

To download the 2023 Active Archive Alliance Annual Report, click here.

Read More

NAB Show Recap: Where Content Comes to Life…and Lives Forever!

Reading Time: 5 minutes

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) held their annual conference this week in Las Vegas. Some 68,000 attendees from broadcasters to screenwriters, advertisers and streamers, to producers and filmmakers were eager to learn about the latest in media and entertainment technology. Some 1,200 exhibitors set up shop in the Las Vegas convention center, including FUJIFILM with our FUJINON lenses, and Recording Media in the form of LTO tape technology.

Read more

Read More

ISC West Expo Reveals Need for Sensible Long Term Video Surveillance Retention

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.  

Read more

Read More

5 Essential Reasons Why Tape Should Be Part of the Backup Process

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Reflecting on World Backup Day coming up on March 31st, I recall coming across the following quote that recently appeared in an industry newsletter from an IT executive that said:

“For years IT administrators have worked hard to back up an increasing tsunami of data, and with each passing year, that has become harder to manage. In some cases, backup has been abandoned altogether. That is a precarious place to be.”

Indeed, a very precarious and dangerous place to be considering the increasing value of data for data-driven organizations. Today’s modern and highly advanced data tape systems can help solve the problem.

Here are five of the top reasons why tape should be part of the backup process:

Read more

Read More

LET’S DISCUSS YOUR NEEDS

We can help you reduce cost, decrease vendor lock-in, and increase productivity of storage staff while ensuring accessibility and longevity of data.

Contact Us >