FEATURE : STORAGE
in 2022 . “ Dependence on technology providers and cloud services based outside of their geographies is an increasing concern for global enterprises ,” said Scality ’ s Speciale . “ Companies are struggling to keep track of the location of their data and meet compliance with local regulations . This will usher in an industry of local and regional service providers offering sovereign cloud services to captive markets by ensuring the data stays within specified borders .”
Keepit ’ s Schouboe agrees : “ As more local and global regulations are put in place to protect data and privacy ,
WE EXPECT TO SEE MORE INTEGRATION OF AI / MLOPS INTO LARGE-SCALE DATA STORAGE OFFERINGS TO ADDRESS THE SKILLS SHORTAGE AND HELP ADMINISTRATORS OFFLOAD AND AUTOMATE PROCESSES .
Candid Wüest , VP Cyber Protection Research , Acronis companies are under pressure to protect and document the state of their infrastructure . The ability to encrypt , protect and restore data is critical for organisations that strive to be compliant . And since SaaS vendors do not automatically backup data for longer periods of time and do not have noteworthy built-in security measures in place to protect the data , it is paramount for IT teams to proactively seek out , assess and implement third-party protective measures , including new technologies like Blockchain for data immutability .”
Artificial Intelligence
IDC forecasts global spending on Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) systems will increase from US $ 85.3 billion in 2021 to more than US $ 204 billion in 2025 . So what can we expect from this fast-growing and transformative technology in 2022 ?
Steven Groenke , CEO at Storbyte , sees 2022 as a crucial year for AI , predicting it to become “ the most disruptive , yet transformative technology ever developed .” He continues : “ AI will grow , but rising energy futures will put pressure on data centres to bring down electricity costs .”
Cloud
According to Gartner , cloud computing will be the centrepiece of new digital experiences : the global cloud revenue will reach a total US $ 474 billion in 2022 , up from US $ 408 billion in 2021 . Keepit ’ s Schouboe explores the cloud ’ s advantages and disadvantages : “ While the cloud is great for scalability and flexibility , it also poses challenges for security : the ability to backup and restore the infrastructure is a high-value safeguard against human error and other disasters that might befall an organisation in the course of their cloud journey .”
Scality ’ s Speciale believes on-premises data centres are here to stay : “ Even as public cloud investment continues , enterprises will maintain their corporate on-premises data centre infrastructures for reasons of control , performance and cost-efficiency . This will lead to a new level of sophisticated IT management capabilities to optimise multi data centre , multi-cloud application and data management solutions .”
In addition , “ The adoption of the Network-as-a- Service will hit the market ,” according to Storbyte ’ s Groenke . This cloud model allows users to operate the network without deploying or maintaining their own infrastructures .
“ 2022 will see data availability become a priority , no matter where data is created or stored ,” predicts Betsy Doughty , VP Corporate Marketing , Spectra Logic . “ With remote working on the rise , the ability to ensure data availability at any location at any time is becoming increasingly important . Organisations will continue to explore how best to integrate cloud into their IT strategies to enable low latency data availability in 2022 . This will open the door to new methods of achieving this with distributed multi-cloud data management solutions capable of providing universal access and placement of data across multisite and multi-cloud storage leading to highly efficient hybrid and multi-cloud workflows .”
Sustainability
For Speciale , it is all in the bigger picture : “ We expect to see more integration of AI / MLOps into large-scale data storage offerings to address the skills shortage and help administrators offload and automate processes .”
Sustainability will be a key focus for IT teams in 2022 , according to Aron Brand , CTO , CTERA . “ The decision to move to the cloud provides access to data centres that are fundamentally greener , as cloud providers are
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