I recently presented a summary report to The Futurum Group team on what was moving in the data infrastructure market and where decisions were being made. Several key themes emerged during the review.
Rethinking of Data Security and Protection
We have covered this topic extensively, but it remains one of the main drivers and topics for review with IT end users – mostly due to constant adjustment to ransomware and other cyber-attacks, but also due to cost management. Clients are looking at their options to cut costs AND simplify the data security and protection environment. Vendors are pitching their updates to help tighten up security and protection practices (earlier detection through activity analysis) and recovery operations (logical or physical airgaps or faster/instant recovery) while providing options for cost savings. The total cost of ownership (TCO) equation has IT end users examining options to tier data to object storage or a long-term S3 Public Cloud bucket. Other options are for a complete backup-as-a-service that incorporates a cloud-like approach, alleviating some of the burden of day-to-day management or more advanced activity analysis to oversee vulnerabilities.
Modernizing the Data Infrastructure
With the introductions of QLC solid state systems, which have been engineered for enterprise class offerings, either hybrid using a mix of HDD and SSD or all HDD systems may be replaceable for less or equal cost. Everyone’s mileage will vary depending on negotiations and deal structure, but for the most part, we are now entering the age of all solid state for active and semi-active storage. This becomes abundantly true for organizations that look at the longer lifespan of solid state, recognizing 7 years or longer depreciation instead of the typical 5-year course. With “Evergreen” type programs, where with premium support the controller upgrade is included, IT end users also get to take advantage of performance boosts from new technology. For instance, most recently we have seen bumps of 30% with Intel’s Sapphire processor coupled with PCIe4.
The second part of modernizing has to do with implementing tiering technology. While this approach is not new, we continue to see advancements in the overall data management with tiering, hiding changes in location that used to upset IT clients.
Generative AI and Usable Data
Coming soon to your IT environment are generative AI applications (aka ChatGPT or large language models). We may be in the hype stage of these new technologies, but the hype is real when looking at the impact of AI learnings. There will be bumps, and most likely poorly-implemented systems, because of a rush to market and lack of training, but over the next year we should expect any company with a sound strategic bent to roll out applications using the technology. That means a rush for deployment and data use, whether on- or off-premises, that requires governance, privacy, and probably geographical localization.
What does the data infrastructure look like? We are calling it a data platform (with more to come from The Futurum Group AI practice and Randy Kerns from the data side), but it will include a data mesh and management technologies and pipelines that feed into data lakes and lakehouses. Underlining storage technologies will include high-speed storage to feed the training and repositories, touching the full hierarchy of storage.
There is enough to keep the data experts quite busy and challenged.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
Infrastructure Innovation: Today’s Enterprise Cannot Ignore the Need to Automate to Drive Resilience
Study: Generative AI Is Most Helpful to Less-Skilled Contact Center Workers
AMD Datacenter & AI Conference Recap: All Eyes on AI and Cost Optimization
Author Information
Now retired, Camberley brought over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
