STLATEST

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

The UK’s number one in IT Storage 

July/August 2024 

Vol 24, Issue 4 

THE GLITTERING PRIZES: 

Winners and runners-up at the 2024 Storage Awards 

STRATEGY: 

The changing role of the CIO 

TECHNOLOGY: 

Streaming video and embedded storage 

STORAGE MANAGEMENT: 

Data growth drives shift to self-service 

COMMENT - RESEARCH - INTERVIEWS - CASE STUDIES - OPINIONS - PRODUCT REVIEWS

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Copyright © 2024 QNAP Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

The UK’s number one in IT Storage 

THE GLITTERING PRIZES: 

Winners and runners-up at the 2024 Storage Awards 


Vol 24, Issue 4 

CONTENTS 

STOR 

MAGAZINE 

STORAGE 

CONTENTS 

STRATEGY: 

The changing role of the CIO 

TECHNOLOGY: 

Streaming video and embedded storage 

STORAGE MANAGEMENT: 

Data growth drives shif to self-service 

COMMENT - RESEARCH - INTERVIEWS - CASE STUDIES - OPINIONS - PRODUCT REVIEWS 

COMMENT….....................................................................4 

Risk it for a diskette 

EVENT: STORAGE AWARDS 2024............................….6 

The 2024 Storage Awards took place in London in June - find out all the winners and 

runners-up here 

06 

MANAGEMENT: C.I.O. STRATEGIES……................……14 

Craig Hatter, Country Manager, DataCore Software, examines the changing role of 

the CIO and how AI can be used to assist in 'regaining the mantle of strategic advisor' 

INTERVIEW: SEAGATE…….........................................….16 

Storage magazine editor David Tyler spoke recently to Emir Amri, Partner Program 

Manager for EMEA at Seagate about the company's recent wins at the 2024 Storage 

Awards, growing the Middle Eastern market, the future of HDD versus SSD, and 

much more 

14 

TECHNOLOGY FOCUS: TAPE STORAGE…………..……18 

Laura Loredo, HPE Worldwide Product Management Manager, the LTO Program, 

describes how tape can be the true hero in the fight against ransomware 

TRENDS: STORAGE MANAGEMENT……..............……20 

Fred Lherault,CTO EMEA/Emerging Markets at Pure Storage, describes how 

organisations can address the most pressing challenges created by exponential growth 

in data 

MANAGEMENT: A.I. & R.O.I……….........................………22 

Jim Liddle, Chief Innovation Officer at Nasuni, explains how to better measure the 

ROI of Artifical Intelligence 

18 

INTERVIEW: ZAVEIT…………....................................…….24 

After picking up a 'One to Watch' award last year, ZaveIT won the 'Innovator of the 

Year' category at this year's Storage Awards. Storage magazine editor David Tyler 

spoke to the company's CEO, Lars Olav Habberstad, to catch up on a busy year 

TECHNOLOGY: STREAMING……..............................….26 

Grace Ensell, Project Manager at Western Digital, looks at the role of embedded 

storage in the new era of streaming entertainment 

22 

OPINION: CYBER PROTECTION……........................…..28 

Eric Herzog of Infinidat describes how the company's recently launched InfiniSafe 

Automated Cyber Protection offering can help prepare your business for cyberattacks 

MANAGEMENT: I.T. STRATEGIES………................…….30 

Mark Lewis, Head of Product Marketing at Zadara, looks at the evolution of storage 

and compute in the age of modern applications, and how organisations can thrive in 

an increasingly digital world 

MANAGEMENT: DATA GOVERNANCE……..........……32 

Syniti's head of presales Kevin Wild explains what most people get wrong - and how to 

put it right - with data governance 

32 

STRATEGY: A.I.……...................................................……34 

Michael McNerney, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Network Security at 

Supermicro, explains why it makes sense to equip your on-premise data centre with 

AI servers 

www.storagemagazine.co.uk @STMagAndAwards July/August 2024 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

03

COMMENT 

EDITOR: David Tyler 

david.tyler@btc.co.uk 

SUB EDITOR: Mark Lyward 

mark.lyward@btc.co.uk 

REVIEWS: Dave Mitchell 

PUBLISHER: John Jageurs 

john.jageurs@btc.co.uk 

LAYOUT/DESIGN: Ian Collis 

ian.collis@btc.co.uk 

SALES/COMMERCIAL ENQUIRIES: 

Lucy Gambazza 

lucy.gambazza@btc.co.uk 

Stuart Leigh 

stuart.leigh@btc.co.uk 

MANAGING DIRECTOR: John Jageurs 

john.jageurs@btc.co.uk 

DISTRIBUTION/SUBSCRIPTIONS: 

Christina Willis 

christina.willis@btc.co.uk 

PUBLISHED BY: Barrow & Thompkins 

Connexions Ltd. (BTC) 

35 Station Square, Petts Wood 

Kent BR5 1LZ, UK 

Tel: +44 (0)1689 616 000 

Fax: +44 (0)1689 82 66 22 

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 

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Single copies can be bought for £8.50 

(includes postage & packaging). 

Published 6 times a year. 

No part of this magazine may be 

reproduced without prior consent, in 

writing, from the publisher. 

©Copyright 2024 

Barrow & Thompkins Connexions Ltd 

Articles published reflect the opinions 

of the authors and are not necessarily those 

of the publisher or of BTC employees. While 

every reasonable effort is made to ensure 

that the contents of articles, editorial and 

advertising are accurate no responsibility 

can be accepted by the publisher or BTC for 

errors, misrepresentations or any 

resulting effects 

RISK IT FOR A DISKETTE 

BY DAVID TYLER 

EDITOR 

Some three years after 'declaring war on floppy disks', the government of Japan 

has announced that it has won its rather bizarre battle. Despite the fact that the 

last diskette was manufactured in 2011 (by Sony), there had been a long and 

deeply held resistance to change in the country that meant that many government 

departments and businesses were forced to keep using the media long past their bestbefore 

date. 

If you are not old enough to remember the three-and-a-half inch diskette, you may 

be surprised to hear that each disk had a capacity of just 1.4mb. Yes, I said 1.4 

megabytes. This meant that if, for instance, you needed to install a new software 

application on your shiny new IBM desktop PC's Windows 3.1 OS, you may have had 

to insert 4, 6, 8 or even more of these things into their drive slot, one after the other 

(in the right order) to do so - all the while hoping not to hear the dreaded clunk and 

grind of a failing floppy! 

I say all of this from personal experience, of course, being of a rather senior age 

myself - I even remember using the five-and-a-quarter inch floppies that came before, 

with a capacity of just 360KB! Nonetheless it is quite staggering to read that a country 

that had a long-standing reputation for technological innovation and early adoption 

could have held out for so long with such an outdated medium. According to an 

article on the BBC News website, "once seen as a tech powerhouse, Japan has in 

recent years lagged in the global wave of digital transformation because of a deep 

resistance to change." 

Digital Minister Taro Kono had made it his mission to wipe out the country's reliance 

on diskettes since being appointed to the role in 2021. He has apparently also sworn 

to 'get rid of the fax machine' - we have to wonder if this proactive attitude will ever 

spread to the Premier League during the transfer window. 

There is a serious side to this story though, as new storage media continue to 

emerge and old systems fall into disuse. Businesses have an obligation to ensure that 

critical data is stored on media that can be read not just now but long into the future. 

Can you imagine the complexities of a data migration project that needed to move 

files from floppy disks as well as tapes, HDD, flash, DNA and whatever might come 

next? Whose responsibility is it to test all that data to ensure its integrity? If it's yours, 

you might want to double check now just exactly what media you might need to be 

able to support. 

04 STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 


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EVENT: 

EVENT: STORAGE AWARDS 2024 

THE GLITTERING PRIZES 

THE 2024 STORAGE AWARDS TOOK PLACE IN LONDON IN JUNE - FIND OUT ALL THE WINNERS AND 

RUNNERS-UP HERE 

Thursday the 6th of June at London's 

Leonardo Royal Tower Bridge Hotel 

saw over 250 of the industry's great 

and good in attendance as we recognised 

and rewarded the products, companies and 

of course individuals who have stood out for 

our readers in the last year. 

The evening kicked off with a drinks 

reception sponsored by Titan Data Solutions 

and entertainment throughout the event was 

provided by award-winning magician Nick 

Einhorn who provided countless 'How did he 

do that?' moments during his act. Having 

warmed up his crowd with some close-up 

magic at the dinner tables, Nick pulled off 

some amazing mentalist trickery when his 

time came on the big stage. 

The awards were presented by sports 

broadcaster Paul Coyte alongside our own 

Stuart Leigh, while Storage magazine editor 

Dave Tyler had his brief moment of fame 

presenting the Editor's Choice trophies. By 

the time the ceremony was over, ExaGrid 

had walked away with 3 trophies, with 

Nexstor, Tintri, CDS, HPE, Seagate, 

Convergent Technology, CTERA, Exertis 

Enterprise, Infinidat, Object First, Procurri 

and Veritas all picking up 2 awards. 

Among the big winners on the night were 

Barracuda for Cloud Product of the Year, 

Seagate for Storage Product of the Year, 

CTERA for Cloud Company of the Year, and 

HPE for Storage Company of the Year. 

Other notable wins were this year's Storage 

Industry Champions: Simon Regan of Exertis 

Enterprise (Technical), Mary Domenichelli of 

Exagrid (Marketing), and Simon Jelley of 

Veritas (Commercial). 

You can find a full list of all the winners 

and runners-up on the following pages - 

and the Storage Awards will of course be 

back again in 2025! 

More info: www.storage-awards.com 

06 STORAGE July/August 2024 


www.storagemagazine.co.uk 

MAGAZINE

EVENT: 


STORAGE AWARDS 2024: 

WINNERS AND RUNNERS-UP 

IN FULL 

STORAGE INNOVATORS OF THE YEAR 

Winner: ZaveIT 

Runner-up: Boston 

ONE TO WATCH - VENDOR 

Winner: Object First 

Runner-up: Nasuni 

ONE TO WATCH - CHANNEL 

Winner: Convergent Technology 

Runner-up: Ultra Support 

IMMUTABLE STORAGE COMPANY 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Object First 

Runner-up: Exagrid 

STORAGE INDUSTRY 

CHAMPION - COMMERCIAL 

Winner: Simon Jelley, Veritas 

Runner-up: Ged Mitchell, M2M Direct 

STORAGE INDUSTRY 

CHAMPION - TECHNICAL 

Winner: Simon Regan, Exertis Enterprise 

Runner-up: Graham Woods, Exagrid 

STORAGE INDUSTRY CHAMPION - MARKETING 

Winner: Mary Domenichelli - ExaGrid 

Runner-up: Bradina Freedman, Arcserve 

CHANNEL EXCELLENCE AWARD 

Winner: Luke Walker - Cameo 

Runner-up: Andy Palmer, Seagate 

CYBER RESILIENT STORAGE COMPANY 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Hornetsecurity 

Runner-up: Object First 

CLOUD BACKUP COMPANY OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Arcserve 

Runner-up: Barracuda 

DATA PROTECTION COMPANY OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Veritas 

Runner-up: Arcserve 

THE STORRIES XXI 


@STMagAndAwards July/August 2024 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

07

EVENT: 


HALL OF FAME 

Winner: Exertis Enterprise 

ENTERPRISE BACKUP HARDWARE VENDOR 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Exagrid 

Runner-up: Infinidat 

DATA MANAGEMENT & MONITORING VENDOR 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: StorMagic 

Runner-up: HPE 

OBJECT STORAGE VENDOR OF THE YEAR 

Winner: DataCore 

Runner-up: HPE 

HYPER-CONVERGENCE VENDOR OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Boston 

Runner-up: StorMagic 

'AS A SERVICE' PLATFORM OF THE YEAR 

Winner: HPE 

Runner-up: NexStor 

FLASH STORAGE VENDOR OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Tintri 

Runner-up: Pure Storage 

PERFORMANCE STORAGE VENDOR 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Tintri 


CLOUD ENABLER OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Nasuni 

Runner-up: CTERA 

SOFTWARE DEFINED STORAGE (SDS) VENDOR 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: CTERA 

Runner-up: DataCore 


STORAGE OPTIMISATION COMPANY 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Storpool 





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EVENT: 



ELECTRONIC DATA WAREHOUSING COMPANY 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Natrinsic 

Runner-up: Oracle 

CAPACITY STORAGE VENDOR OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Infinidat 

Runner-up: Exagrid 

CHANNEL PARTNER PROGRAM OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Seagate 

Runner-up: Arcserve 

MULTI-VENDOR SERVICE PROVIDER 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: CDS 

Runner-up: Cameo 

STORAGE BROKER OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Procurri 

Runner-up: Gentronics 

SUSTAINABILITY CHAMPION OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Ultra Support 

Runner-up: Cameo 

ITAD COMPANY OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Procurri 

Runner-up: Relltek 

SECURITY STORAGE RESELLER OF THE YEAR 

Winner: NGS 

Runner-up: Logicalis 

SPECIALIST STORAGE RESELLER OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Epaton 

Runner-up: Virtual Effect 

ENTERPRISE STORAGE RESELLER OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Nexstor 

Runner-up: Convergent Technology 

MANAGED SERVICE PROVIDER (MSP) 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Nexstor 

Runner-up: Logicalis 




MAGAZINE

EVENT: 


SPECIALIST STORAGE DISTRIBUTOR 

OF THE YEAR 

Winner: CMS Distribution 

Runner-up: Exertis Enterprise 

ENTERPRISE STORAGE DISTRIBUTOR OF THE 

YEAR 

Winner: Titan Data Solutions 

Runner-up: Exertis Enterprise 

EDITOR'S CHOICE - PRODUCT 

Winner: Infinidat - InfiniGuard 

Runner-up: Barracuda - Barracuda Backup 

EDITOR'S CHOICE - COMPANY 

Winner: Cameo 

Runner-up: Barracuda 

STORAGE SOLUTION OF THE YEAR - PUBLIC 

SECTOR 

Winner: Spectra Logic - Imperial War Museum 

Runner-up: Epaton/Nutanix, University of York 

STORAGE SOLUTION 

OF THE YEAR - CORPORATE 

Winner: Convergent Technology/Exagrid 

Runner-up: Arcserve, Dennis 

CLOUD PRODUCT OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Barracuda - Cloud-to-Cloud Backup 

Runner-up: CTERA - Enterprise File Services Platform 

STORAGE PRODUCT OF THE YEAR 

Winner: Seagate, EXOS X VelosCT/4006 

Runner-up: DataCore, SANSymphony 

CLOUD COMPANY OF THE YEAR 

Winner: CTERA 

Runner-up: Nasuni 

STORAGE COMPANY OF THE YEAR 

Winner: HPE 

Runner-up: Exagrid and Seagate 


More info: www.storage-awards.com 




MAGAZINE

The scalable 

data platform 

for modern 

enterprises.

MANAGEMENT: CIO STRATEGIES 

WHERE NEXT FOR THE CIO? 

CRAIG HATTER, COUNTRY 

MANAGER, DATACORE 

SOFTWARE, EXAMINES THE 

CHANGING ROLE OF THE CIO 

AND HOW AI CAN BE USED TO 

ASSIST IN 'REGAINING THE 

MANTLE OF STRATEGIC 

ADVISOR' 

You can't have helped but notice how 

rapidly evolving technologies and new 

business models have profoundly 

transformed the role of the Chief Information 

Officer (CIO) within companies and 

organisations. Perhaps you are a CIO 

yourself and have witnessed a revolution in 

your own - and your department's - 

workloads and responsibilities. 

Most of us can recall that a few decades ago, 

CIOs typically held long-term positions, often 

lasting for decades, with a focus on 

maintaining IT infrastructures and introducing 

new tools into departments, rolling out 

solutions often laptop by laptop. This allowed 

them to make a significant hands-on 

contribution to business transformation. At this 

stage, CIOs enjoyed a high degree of 

autonomy, reporting directly to the Managing 

Director (MD) and the Board as trusted 

technical visionaries. 

During this timescale, IT was seen not merely 

as a support function but as a central pillar of 

the company. In this article we explore how, in 

today's digital, cloud-based world, the CIO role 

is making strides to regain its strategic 

importance and how it can do so with authority 

and the appropriate tools. 

CHANGING INFLUENCE 

In 2024 the IT department landscape has 

changed dramatically. The power and sign-off 

of the CIO has diminished, often benefitting 

the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Now 

equipped with some solid IT skills, CFOs 

demand rapid and significant returns on 

investment (ROI), akin to fast-food services, but 

served onto the cloud. 

CIOs, once responsible for all aspects of 

infrastructure (servers, security, etc.), now see 

their responsibilities divided, particularly with 

the creation of the Information Systems Security 

Manager (ISSM) or Chief Information Security 

Officers (CISOs) as separate positions to bring 

clarity and coverage of an organisation's cyber 

security, defence and compliance capabilities. 

Staff turnover within IT departments has also 

increased due to a well-documented global 

tech skills shortage. Seniority is no longer 

measured in years but instead in delivery 

quarters, aligning with the execution of 

transformation projects. Does this mean a 

deterioration in the profession? On the 

contrary: in a more dynamic world, CIOs on 

specialist assignments are achieving in months 

what used to take years. They are challenging 

the status quo and making more impactful 




MAGAZINE

MANAGEMENT: CIO STRATEGIES 

"In 2024 the IT department landscape has changed dramatically. The power and 

sign-off of the CIO has diminished, often benefitting the Chief Financial Officer. 

Now equipped with some solid IT skills, CFOs demand rapid and significant returns 

on investment (ROI), akin to fast-food services, but served onto the cloud. CIOs, 

once responsible for all aspects of infrastructure (servers, security, etc.), now see their 

responsibilities divided, particularly with the creation of the Information Systems 

Security Manager (ISSM) or Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) as separate 

positions to bring clarity and coverage of an organisation's cyber security, defence 

and compliance capabilities." 

decisions on infrastructure empowerment. 

AI AND PEOPLE ARE INSEPARABLE 

Artificial intelligence (AI) adds new dimensions 

to the CIO role in terms of potential outcomes. 

AI enables faster generation of architecture 

recommendations and integration of AI 

benefits into decision-making processes. Much 

like Christopher Columbus, today's CIO often 

navigates uncharted territory, managing 

budgets based on best-usage predictions with 

little flexibility. 

However, AI offers the potential for a 

complete vision through predictive 

dashboards, allowing CIOs to conduct 

effective server audits and optimise resource 

consumption before any money is spent on 

deployment. AI is becoming the compass for 

tomorrow's CIO. 

On a human level, a major recent 

development is the evolving relationship 

between CIOs and CFOs. While CIOs make 

technical decisions, CFOs approve them, 

requiring CIOs to present solid, quantified 

arguments to justify their choices. 

Consequently, CIOs are increasingly 

interested in setting up EPP (or sometimes 

known as Predictive Price Evolution) contracts. 

These contracts enable them to forecast the 

costs of future extensions and support, 

providing greater visibility over long-term 

expenditures, extending beyond the project 

term to 5, 10, or even 15 years. 

HOW CAN I.T. REGAIN ITS ADVISORY 

ROLE? 

These transformations offer IT departments 

several pathways to reclaim their role as trusted 

advisors. Firstly, they can leverage AI to 

enhance business efficiency and 

competitiveness. Secondly, the increasing 

adoption of hybrid cloud strategies 

underscores the need for agile and scalable IT 

resource management. Additionally, changes 

in European regulations on data protection 

and cybersecurity, such as NIS2, impose new 

responsibilities on CIOs and CISOs, making 

their collaboration crucial. 

In conclusion, the role of the CIO has 

evolved significantly. CIOs now must navigate 

a complex environment, work closely with 

CFOs, and integrate cutting-edge 

technologies like AI to maintain their 

company's competitiveness and the appeal of 

their profession. 

More info: www.datacore.com 



STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

15

INTERVIEW: SEAGATE 

SCALING UP 

STORAGE MAGAZINE EDITOR DAVID TYLER SPOKE RECENTLY TO EMIR AMRI, PARTNER PROGRAM 

MANAGER FOR EMEA AT SEAGATE, ABOUT THE COMPANY'S RECENT WINS AT THE 2024 STORAGE 

AWARDS, GROWING THE MIDDLE EASTERN MARKET, THE FUTURE OF HDD VERSUS SSD, AND 

MUCH MORE 

David Tyler: Seagate won two 

significant trophies at this year's 

Storage Awards, for Channel Partner 

Program of the Year and the big one, 

Storage Product of the Year for your EXOS X 

VelosCT/4006 array. I know you were there 

at the ceremony; what did those wins mean 

for you personally and for Seagate? 

Emir Amri: It was a great night for us: I was 

there as the Marketing Manager for Systems 

as well as the EMEA Partner Program, so it 

worked out well for me. My role is divided 

somewhat across multiple responsibilities! 

Strategically I am involved in 

planning activities across EMEA, 

with an emphasis currently on 

the Middle East, because that 

market is really buzzing at 

the moment. We are seeing 

a lot of opportunities in 

Saudi Arabia and Qatar, 

for example. At the same 

time in Northern Europe 

we're very focused on the 

UK market. Interestingly 

as we look at projects in 

the Middle East, the 

partners involved are 

predominantly from the 

UK - there are lots of UK 

companies spreading their 

focus and bringing their expertise to 

those markets. It's a great 

opportunity, not only for Seagate 

but also for our channel partners 

here in the UK. 

DT: On the product side, I 

know Seagate is working hard 

to innovate in the area of 

mass capacity solutions - what can you tell 

us about current and future offerings in 

that space? 

EA: Earlier this year we announced that we 

would be bringing high capacity drives to 

market with a new technology. Our R&D 

teams have been working on these 

technological advances for many years - as 

have our competitors, of course - but we 

are the first to bring out drives with 

capacities of over 30TB. The innovation 

here is actually quite fascinating, because 

we are increasing the capacity per platter 

within the disk. Each drive contains ten 

platters and each platter can hold up to 3TB 

of data. The way we write to the drives is via 

heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), 

and it gives us the opportunity to really scale 

up capacity per drive. 

There are a lot of benefits that come 

along with increased disk capacity: think of 

the environmental benefit, the reduced 

energy consumption, lower Total Cost of 

Ownership, of course - multiple 

advantages. This is of course aimed at 

data centres, at government projects - and 

I'm confident that our technologies will 

help to address their mass capacity issues 

going forward. 

We're seeing a lot of buzz around it, and we 

already have a roadmap to take us beyond 

30TB - we have our eyes on the 50TB disk 

drive already! The plan is to scale up the 

writing capacity per platter even further, so 

we can reach ten platters with 5TB on each. 

DT: In general terms, do you believe we are 

ever going to reach a capacity limit for hard 

drives - or any storage media, potentially - 




MAGAZINE

INTERVIEW: SEAGATE 

"There are a lot of benefits that come along with increased disk capacity: think of the 

environmental benefit, the reduced energy consumption, lower Total Cost of Ownership, 

of course - multiple advantages. This is of course aimed at data centres, at government 

projects - and I'm confident that our technologies will help to address their mass capacity 

issues going forward. We're seeing a lot of buzz around it, and we already have a 

roadmap to take us beyond 30TB - we have our eyes on the 50TB disk drive already! 

The plan is to scale up the writing capacity per platter even further, so we can reach ten 

platters with 5TB on each." 

wherein we say it just isn't physically possible 

to write any more data on that kind of 

device? At the moment it doesn't really feel 

like there is a top limit. 

EA: It's a really interesting question - and it's 

a hard one to give a definite answer to. I 

think that regardless of what we're bringing 

to the market at any point, we should 

always be looking to improve our 

technologies - and our R&D teams of 

course are always working on new 

technologies. So at some point, there will 

I'm sure be new solutions coming to market 

beyond even that 50TB capacity. 

Of course there has also been a 

conversation going on for a very long time 

about whether HDD or SSD is the better 

solution for pure storage going forward. 

SSDs are obviously much faster in 

comparison to HDDs, but at the same time 

the capacities that we can offer on HDD are 

still way beyond what we can do with SSD. 

We've done a lot of research around this, 

and we believe that while yes, a lot of 

people are currently favouring SSD, HDD 

will still remain highly relevant in the long 

term. A large part of the reason for that is 

that we're consistently seeing the per TB cost 

of HDD storage as being way less than the 

equivalent SSD offering. 

DT: So an offering like your Mozaic 3+ 

HDD platform isn't really lining up as a 

competitor to emerging SSD product lines, 

but more as a complementary solution? 

There is a place for both for most users? 

EA: A key point to remember here is that 

actually you don't currently really need 

huge capacities on SSD, because SSDs are 

being used to transfer data as opposed to 

backing that data up, and that's where the 

HDD comes into its own. 

And there have of course been a lot of 

issues over time with SSD production, 

sourcing of materials etc. that have 

affected the cost. That is another factor in 

why we don't currently believe there will be 

aggressive growth in the market for SSDs, 

while they remain so expensive compared 

to HDD. 

Ultimately, a lot of the infrastructure that 

you see in any data centre is based 

around both technologies - it's not about 

one device replacing the other. For 

backup type functions especially, HDD is 

here to stay, there is no question. And 

that's why we're focusing on that horizon 

at Seagate, with the Mozaic 3+ mass 

capacity platform. 

More info: www.seagate.com 



STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

17

TECHNOLOGY FOCUS: TAPE STORAGEFOCUS: 

BREAKING THE RANSOMWARE DAISY-CHAIN 

LAURA LOREDO, HPE WORLDWIDE PRODUCT MANAGEMENT MANAGER, THE LTO PROGRAM, 

DESCRIBES HOW TAPE CAN BE THE TRUE HERO IN THE FIGHT AGAINST RANSOMWARE 

With so much attention directed at the 

unintended consequences of 

algorithms and potential 

inaccuracies of large language models (LLMs), 

the massive impact AI will have on storage is in 

danger of being overshadowed. Beyond the 

evident concerns about biases and 

misinformation, AI systems process colossal 

amounts of sensitive data that must be stored 

securely to protect against breaches and meet 

compliance obligations. 

With a recent IDC report predicting that the 

worldwide AI software market will grow from 

$64 billion in 2022 to nearly $251 billion in 

2027, the storage infrastructures holding data 

to be utilised by such technologies will need to 

scale to unprecedented capacities and stay 

protected for years by impenetrable 

cybersecurity defences. It's a by-product of the 

coming AI era that mustn't be underestimated. 

Another recent report from Fortune Business 

Insights predicted that the AI-powered storage 

market is poised to grow from $18.6 billion in 

2022 to a staggering $110.7 billion by 2030. 

To meet this huge demand, today's storage 

solutions are evolving quickly. They too are 

harnessing AI's strengths to optimise capacity 

for unstructured data and accommodate the 

specific needs of AI applications. However, the 

threat of cyberattacks looms over every aspect 

of today's technology industry, and the world of 

AI-powered storage is no different. 

The problem is that many types of storage 

are vulnerable to cyberattacks, especially 

from malware, and AI-powered storage is 

no exception. Ransomware in particular can 

be profoundly disruptive with victims often 

suffering considerable financial loss. 

Outlays include paying full or part of 




MAGAZINE

TECHNOLOGY FOCUS: FOCUS: 

TAPE STORAGE 

"The only way to guard against such attacks is to make data 

inaccessible by storing a copy of critical information offline, 

and keeping another copy offsite in case of an on-premises 

disaster. Otherwise, if ransomware takes hold, it can encrypt 

all operational and customer-facing systems as well as 

primary and secondary backups - and potentially, bridge into 

third parties. It simply daisy-chains from one to another, 

bypassing cybersecurity defences in a matter of minutes." 

ransoms, data restoration costs, legal 

advice, compliance fines, and 

compensation to customers. Then on top of 

this, there's loss of sales revenue during 

downtime, and damage to reputation that 

can take months or perhaps years to repair. 

THE DAISY-CHAIN PROBLEM 

The only way to guard against such attacks is 

to make data inaccessible by storing a copy of 

critical information offline, and keeping 

another copy offsite in case of an on-premises 

disaster. Otherwise, if ransomware takes hold, 

it can encrypt all operational and customerfacing 

systems as well as primary and 

secondary backups - and potentially, bridge 

into third parties. It simply daisy-chains from 

one to another, bypassing cybersecurity 

defences in a matter of minutes. 

A ransomware attack last year against Danish 

services provider, CloudNordic, demonstrates 

just how devastating this can be. According to 

reports, attackers encrypted all disks on their 

servers, including primary and secondary 

backup systems, causing machines to crash 

and access to all data was lost. 

And ransomware isn't going away. The latest 

'State of Ransomware' report from Sophos 

states 59% of organisations experienced an 

attack in the last year and, of these, 63% 

received a ransom demand for $1 million 

dollars or more. Although, figures can be 

considerably higher. It recently transpired 

hackers demanded an eye-watering $200 

million dollars from Boeing after stealing 

sensitive data from its network last year. 

However, if organisations incorporated tape 

backup into their storage strategies they could 

protect and recover their data without breaking 

the bank, or succumbing to extortion attempts 

from criminals. 

WHY AN AIR GAP IS VITAL 

Tapes offer a vital last line of defence against 

ransomware attacks. They are portable, 

making it easy to take them both offline and 

offsite, thus creating a physical break or air 

gap that cannot be crossed by malware. 

Powerful data compression also helps to 

reduce storage requirements, and encryption 

protects data from theft or damage. 

Plus, to help meet stringent compliance 

regulations, data cartridge and drive 

technology provide a tamper-proof write-once, 

read-many (WORM) option which stores data 

in a non-rewritable format, designed to last for 

up to 30 years. 

Modern storage drives also enable rapid 

recovery in the event of an IT system breach, 

streaming back data much more quickly than 

from a public cloud. To start with, it's fast and 

simple to remove the tapes. Then, they can be 

transported quickly and securely from one data 

centre to another to ensure operations are up 

and running as soon as possible after an 

incident. Not just limited to ransomware or 

cyber breaches, this includes recovery after 

catastrophic system failures, natural disasters, 

and accidental deletion. 

With so much to recommend tape already, 

the justification is made more compelling by its 

affordability. It enables organisations to 

forecast and control costs far more effectively 

than using disks or cloud services. In fact, a 

recent Solutions North report found that LTO-9 

tape has a measurable ROI of up to 1856% 

when compared to cloud storage, and 501% 

compared to HDD, making tape arguably the 

lowest-cost storage method of achieving 

ransomware recovery best practices. 

Tape can help address the cybersecurity 

concerns for the age of AI, as organisations 

seek to strengthen data protection and 

minimise storage costs. Tape, the real hero, 

can play a critical and long-term role, 

shielding data from ransomware and other 

potentially harmful cyberattacks for years 

to come. 

More info: www.lto.org 



STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

19

TRENDS: 

TRENDS: STORAGE MANAGEMENT 

WHEN THE GOING GETS COMPLEX, THE SMART 

ENABLE SELF-SERVICE 

FRED LHERAULT, CTO EMEA/EMERGING MARKETS AT PURE STORAGE, DESCRIBES HOW 

ORGANISATIONS CAN ADDRESS THE MOST PRESSING CHALLENGES CREATED BY EXPONENTIAL 

GROWTH IN DATA 

Storage management is quickly evolving. 

Driven by AI and digital transformation, 

data centres must handle massive data 

growth, unprecedented application agility 

requirements, spiralling complexity, plus skills 

shortages and soaring energy costs. 

It's not so much a sea change as a perfect 

storm - but that brings opportunities for 

improvement. Organisations can modernise 

their IT infrastructure and operations to take 

advantage of a new era in storage 

management built around policy-based 

management, self-service provisioning and 

automated storage-as-code approaches. 

In this article I drill down into the challenges of 

storage management on the road to digital 

transformation and the leading-edge solutions 

that can bring big advantages to organisations 

that deploy them. 

THE DATA CHALLENGE 

Of the fundamentals that impact storage 

management, our relationship with data is 

crucial. Since 2010 the average annual rate of 

data growth has been around 38%, according 

to Statista. That includes some peak years - 

such as during the pandemic - when data 

creation spiked, with a total predicted volume 

of 181 zettabytes globally by 2025. This is a 

staggering amount, with no signs of slowing 

down. Deployed storage has tracked increased 

data volume, with 6.7 zettabytes installed in 

2020 - bearing in mind a lot of data created is 

not retained - and an annual growth rate of 

19% predicted to 2025. 

Planning for such rates of data growth is a 

headache for enterprises, especially with the 

traditional investment and depreciation cycle. In 

the past, being able to accommodate 

unplanned requirements meant having to hold 

extra hardware in reserve. At the same time, 

soaring electricity costs have driven the need for 

better use of energy in the data centre. IT 

organisations now also need to focus on 

efficiency and sustainability of their 

infrastructure. 

The act of storage provisioning was also a time 

(and headcount) consuming process, 

particularly in organisations vertically-segmented 

between business departments and IT's sub-units 

of software, servers, storage and networking. 

Requests to deploy and provision storage 

necessitated a tortuous route from requesting 

units to storage admins. Often the organisation 

needed many admins with multiple skills to 

manage numerous storage environments across 

several storage vendors and technology. All of 

this could easily take weeks. 

WHEN THE GOING GETS COMPLEX… 

Dealing with data growth and increased 

application complexity previously meant 

throwing extra resources at the problem in the 

form of additional storage administrators. 

However, to simply increase storage admin 

headcount is not only inefficient, but practically 

impossible in today's IT landscape. The skills to 

manage multiple legacy storage arrays often 

don't exist or are very costly to hire. Not only this, 

but modern organisations want their employees 

to be focused on innovation, increasing 

productivity and customer experience, rather 

than day-to-day provisioning tasks. 

Today, labour-intensive approaches to storage 

management no longer make sense. The old 

vertically-segmented paradigm of IT 

management has melted away in the face of 

new IT architectures. We are in transition - via 

digital transformation - to new norms that 

include cloud operating models and 

infrastructure-as-code with storage specified as 

part of the application development and 

deployment process. Agility and speed of 

delivery are now more important than ever and 

organisations are expected to be able to adapt 

to new requirements swiftly. 

…THE SMART ENABLE SELF-SERVICE 

Where dedicated storage resources are 

employed, organisations want to significantly 

increase the volume of storage managed per 

FTE. But, crucially to the new paradigms, much 

storage provisioning passes over to 

development phases of application 

deployment, triggerable by self-service selection 

of storage performance profiles or coded in via 

APIs. With new application deployment models 

such as containerisation, storage resources are 

defined as part of the application configuration 

file, designed to be deployed automatically by 

the orchestration platform. 

Here, applications spin up and scale rapidly 

with storage requirements built into those 

lifecycles, and at a rate often beyond what 

humans can manage manually. At such a 

speed of operations, storage management has 




MAGAZINE

TRENDS: 

TRENDS: STORAGE MANAGEMENT 

"Today, labour-intensive approaches to storage management no longer make sense. The 

old vertically-segmented paradigm of IT management has melted away in the face of 

new IT architectures. We are in transition - via digital transformation - to new norms that 

include cloud operating models and infrastructure-as-code with storage specified as part 

of the application development and deployment process." 

to work via pre-set policy, auto-provisioning 

and auto-scaling. 

STORAGE MANAGEMENT IN THE 

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ERA 

The future of storage management centres on 

customer-set storage performance profiles 

selected via self-service or entirely automated in 

the application environment via storage-ascode 

and orchestrators. 

Smart IT organisations will transform the role 

of the storage administrator to look like a 

product manager. This means defining storage 

"products" through abstraction concepts such as 

storage classes and policies. This also means 

enabling self-service by the organisations' 

internal customers and orchestration platforms 

rather than being the person that provisions 

storage objects, leaving the new storage 

product manager free to manage fleets of 

devices rather than individual storage arrays, 

monitor the use of the existing services and 

create new offerings. 

To enable this cloud operating model, some 

storage vendors can offer platforms with which 

storage admins can manage and add capacity 

to their fleet of storage devices non-disruptively, 

as well as define classes of storage, policies 

and availability zones to be made available to 

their consumers. Meanwhile, developers that 

use infrastructure-as-code platforms can specify 

the class of storage they want for an 

application, code it into templates, test it and 

deploy it. 

For fully-automated containerised 

environments, businesses should look for the 

leading enterprise-grade Kubernetes data 

platform for modern applications. This will 

provide storage management for Kubernetes 

clusters with automated deployment and 

scaling of persistent storage, plus data 

protection. Some solutions even include data 

services on top of this, such as a curated set of 

databases for use in Kubernetes environments, 

which deploy with just one click of a button, 

saving a huge amount of time for developers. 

Note however that enabling self-service while 

still being dependent on long purchasing and 

delivery cycles leaves the organisation open to 

risk. Fully embracing these concepts means 

consuming the underlying storage platforms asa-Service, 

to enable rapid scale where needed, 

enable flexibility, but also avoid investing in 

hardware ahead of when it is actually needed. 

Businesses should look not only at vendor's 

technology but also their ability to provide their 

platforms through flexible, on-demand 

consumption models. 

HOW CAN YOU ACHIEVE SEAMLESS, 

MODERN STORAGE MANAGEMENT? 

Some storage vendors can indeed offer all of 

the above, the benefit of working with a 

single storage supplier is that 

integrated product sets create 

efficiencies all through the stack. 

All flash storage arrays linked 

across a single operating 

environment means workloads 

can be managed at scale across 

the business from a single view, 

seamlessly alongside a Kubernetes data 

platform and all the self service storage 

functionality a modern business needs. 

There are also huge benefits in utilisation and 

energy efficiency. Some all-flash vendors can 

offer up to 85% increased energy efficiency 

compared to competing all-flash products, 

and a much smaller footprint to maximise data 

centre efficiency. Finally, working with a vendor 

that can offer all of this through a flexible, SLAbacked 

storage as-a-Service offering that 

features guarantees around energy usage, 

zero data migrations and non disruptive 

upgrades is the key to achieving seamless, 

modern storage management. 

More info: www.purestorage.com 



STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

21

MANAGEMENT: AI & ROI 

AI: FROM DATA TO DOLLARS 

JIM LIDDLE, CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER AT NASUNI, EXPLAINS HOW TO BETTER MEASURE THE ROI OF 

ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE 

The storage industry has been flooded with 

the promises of new technologies ever 

since the modern AI craze erupted 

eighteen months ago. Every time this 

movement appears to hit its peak, a new 

model or capability is introduced to the market 

- kicking up a flurry of buzz terms and hype all 

over again. 

It's this exact ebb and flow that demands 

enterprises take a step back and reevaluate 

their AI strategies. After all, the cost of both 

publicly available and privately maintained AI 

solutions are proving to be higher than 

anticipated: token, GPU, and energy costs are 

rising as demand exceeds supply. Executives 

also expect tangible, measurable results for 

their investments, leaving IT teams to find 

answers with little to no guidance. 

Though it's still too early to measure the hard 

ROI of AI initiatives, there are certain results 

that enterprises can quantify. As a company 

that is deeply entrenched in the business of 

data, Nasuni is always assisting customers with 

how they can get the most out of their data 

sets, be it for AI or other use-cases. Our advice 

on AI, for the time being, is to focus on its soft 

ROI, since this will point your organisation 

toward a sustainable, hard-ROI-oriented future 

AI strategy. 

Here's why this makes sense: 

AI is far more efficient when used to 

complement human intelligence. Instead 

of looking at which roles within your 

organisation you can replace with AI, 

consider where and how these tools 

might be able to help your people work 

more efficiently. 

 

There are certain advantages to AI that you 

simply cannot quantify. For example, 

salespeople or technical engineers who 

need to generate a quick pitch or email 

during the workday can enlist the help of 

an AI tool to produce a first draft. In this 

instance, the tools are directly impacting 

the productivity of your employees. 

By countering the fear and uncertainty 

employees normally associate with 

adopting AI tools, you will ease the cultural 

shift. Employees will rest assured that AI can 

make them better at their jobs, not replace 

them. 

As you integrate AI tools to gather more 

intelligence regarding customer sentiment 

and preferences, you will grow and sharpen 

your understanding of what your customers 

want and need. 

You will gain valuable AI experience and 

start to understand how and where AI can 

be best deployed within your organisation. 

It's this form of ROI that enterprises around the 

world should all be aiming for: more productive 

and efficient users, contributing to a more 

productive and efficient organisation. And, to 

properly leverage AI to generate higher value 

contributions, companies need to first look 

inwards. After all, an enterprise's data 

infrastructure and management strategy is the 

foundation to start measuring the true benefits 

of AI investments. 

More info: www.nasuni.com 




MAGAZINE

Channel Only... 

Enterprise IT 

Third-Party 

Maintenance 

Server | Data-Storage | Networking 

• Enterprise IT 

• Global Coverage 

• Flexible SLAs, including 24/7 

• Experienced Engineers 

• New & Legacy product support 

• Post-warranty & EOSL support 

• Security Cleared Engineers 

Unit 1 Challeymead Business Park, Bradford Road, Melksham 

Wiltshire SN12 8BU, United Kingdom 

Tel. +44 (0)1438 983 070 Email: info@ultrasupport.co.uk Web: www.ultrasupport.co.uk

INTERVIEW: ZAVEIT 

AT YOUR SERVICE 

AFTER PICKING UP A 'ONE TO WATCH' AWARD LAST YEAR, 

ZAVEIT WON THE 'INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR' CATEGORY AT 

THIS YEAR'S STORAGE AWARDS. STORAGE MAGAZINE EDITOR 

DAVID TYLER SPOKE TO THE COMPANY'S CEO, LARS OLAV 

HABBERSTAD, TO CATCH UP ON A BUSY YEAR 

David Tyler: We last spoke around a 

year ago when you had just won 

your first Storage Award - for 

anyone who wasn't reading the magazine 

then, can you recap some of your 

own history and background 

and how ZaveIT came to be? 

Lars Olav Habberstad: I 

come from the storage and 

backup industry, where I 

spent many years working 

with everything from 

mainframes to Unix 

systems and even 

supercomputers - it was a 

very steep learning curve! 

I'd been coding since I 

was 13 so I loved all that. 

At one point I developed 

some software for 

moving data from disk 

to tape - back then it 

wasn't normal to 

backup to disk 

because it was 

super-expensive. 

One of our 

biggest clients 

for that was 

Credit Suisse, 

who even back 

in the early 

2000s were 

backing up a 

petabyte of 

data. 

I then went on 

to start Purity in 

2008, which was one of the first 

organisations seriously promoting the 

concept of 'green IT'. We were going into 

data centres, looking at the storage and 

compute systems and making suggestions 

on how they could be making savings and 

improving efficiency. 

After 5 or 6 years having some huge 

successes with Purity, we decided to take it 

a step further and move over to cloud 

services. We'd seen a few backup vendors 

who had successfully offered backup-as-aservice 

to the SMB market and we saw the 

opportunity to do the same for enterprise 

customers, because that was who we were 

used to working with. We found some 

great software from Commvault and built 

a service on top of it, and then did the 

same with Zerto. We were also among the 

first in Europe to use Cloudian. Then we 

were able to build storage-as-a-service, 

backup-as-a-service and disasterrecovery-as-a-service, 

and had great 

success with that: Purity actually went from 

zero cloud service offerings to around 

60% cloud within just a few years. 

DT: So what was the next step, from Purity 

to ZaveIT? 

LOH: We actually sold Purity in 2017, and 

I took some time off to consider my future 

plans.mWe had been a reseller and MSP 

ourselves, of course, so I was very aware 

of many of the issues that resellers faced. 

In order to 'downscale' these enterprise 

products so as to sell them to SMBs, there 

was definitely a need for automation. In 

addition there might be six or seven 




MAGAZINE

INTERVIEW: ZAVEIT 

" I think even today many VARs almost don't dare try to sell services because often they 

don't properly understand what it is they're supposed to be selling: they're used to just 

buying and selling 'stuff'. Services sales is a very different approach than selling products: 

it can be far more complex. Our platform actually helps them get past this by integrating 

with the distributors, helping them pick products or even build their own products, turn it 

into a service, give it a nice look-and-feel, and put it into their own marketplace, or even 

offer it as a customer portal." 

different systems we had to work around to 

deal with our customers, from CRM to 

ticketing and accounting in the 

background - it's a lot of work, and highly 

error-prone! 

This was when I started to think about a 

platform specifically tailored for MSPs and 

IT resellers/VARs. Around that time 

everyone was talking about their APIs, but 

frankly most of them at that time were 

effectively useless. Coming into 2020, 

most systems were starting to offer decent 

APIs, and that's when we began to think 

'Yes, this is possible, we can build this.' 

DT: And what was the benefit to the 

resellers of a platform like yours? Did you 

have to do a bit of an education job at 

first to explain the proposition? 

LOH: I think even today many VARs 

almost don't dare try to sell services 

because often they don't properly 

understand what it is they're supposed to 

be selling: they're used to just buying and 

selling 'stuff'. Services sales is a very 

different approach than selling products: it 

can be far more complex. 

Our platform actually helps them get 

past this by integrating with the 

distributors, helping them pick products or 

even build their own products, turn it into 

a service, give it a nice look-and-feel, and 

put it into their own marketplace, or even 

offer it as a customer portal. 

DT: Explain why the customer portal 

concept is so attractive for your users. 

LOH: It's interesting: I actually believe that 

for the 'first contact' with a customer, it is 

still best to do it the old-fashioned way: 

you have to call them, and win them over 

as your customer - but once you've got 

past that point, after that, the customer 

simply wants to be able to buy from you 

easily. Neither side wants to be calling 

each other every week. Younger users, in 

particular, can be very resistant to the idea 

of being 'sold to'. 

This is a key advantage of a customer 

portal: let's say you sell some cloud 

services to a customer, and that customer 

also has requirements for things like wifi, 

hardware, keyboards, or whatever - 

previously, the chances are they will buy 

those items from someone else - often one 

of the global selling sites. But with the 

portal, it's a really easy option to add all 

those peripheral products in there as well, 

and grow your revenues a lot in that way. 

This is a really smart way for VARs to 

operate. 

DT: And what about the offering to MSPs? 

LOH: In essence we offer MSPs exactly the 

same thing, with exactly the same benefits, 

but of course we focus more on 

deployments: MSPs of course have 'bigger' 

needs. A good example is how we work 

with NODE4 now, who have a channel 

with around 200 of what they call subresellers. 

We automate their entire 

process: a customer clicks Buy, and the 

entire chain is automated from buyer 

through sub-reseller back to Node4. That 

saves a lot of money, and increases 

customer satisfaction - one of the main 

customer complaints has always been 

about the time it can take from placing an 

order to completion. 

So overall what we are offering is 

efficiency gains and time/cost savings, 

obviously, but also a chance for our users 

to easily offer a larger range of products 

and services. And it's important to 

remember that ZaveIT is not just about 

services, it's the total approach: you can 

do orders and ticketing etc. all within the 

platform, without having to go to lots of 

different webpages or whatever. 

As SaaS has helped to establish 

confidence in the idea of the whole as-aservice 

approach, that has encouraged 

VARs to recognise that they pretty much 

have to look at offering services in order 

to remain competitive - the market is 

moving towards a point of offering one 

place to build, sell and manage those 

services, and that's where ZaveIT 

comes in. 

More info: www.zaveit.io 



STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

25

TECHNOLOGY: STREAMING 

FULL STREAM AHEAD 

GRACE ENSELL, PROJECT MANAGER AT WESTERN DIGITAL, LOOKS AT THE ROLE OF EMBEDDED 

STORAGE IN THE NEW ERA OF STREAMING ENTERTAINMENT 

As the Video-on-Demand (VoD) content 

market continues to grow, so does the 

UK's rising appetite for streaming services 

and technologies. With over 200 streaming 

services currently available worldwide, the 

entertainment landscape has shifted from the 

big screen to smaller devices - helped in part by 

the rise of 5G. 

As content becomes increasingly accessible 

on handheld devices, data storage solutions 

will continue to drive and enable VoD 

accessibility, ensuring that the entertainment of 

the future is right at consumers' fingertips. 

The introduction of 5G and its high-speed 

and low-latency capabilities has paved the way 

for live video streaming to mobile devices in 

HD, UHD and 8K resolutions - all of which 

have delivered content seamlessly without 

buffering or loading. However, while 5G is 

enhancing video quality on handheld devices, 

there's rising demand for more efficient and 

robust storage solutions to keep pace with clear 

quality and storage-hungry content. 

Statista research revealed that nearly 70% of 

the US digital 

audience stream videos on their smartphones 

- a trend mirrored in the UK and worldwide. 

Additionally, with 87% of UK adults owning a 

smartphone, a further surge in VoD content 

consumption on handheld devices in the 

future can be anticipated. As the need to 

enhance streaming quality continues, both 

device providers and streaming services must 

protect their investment with effective data 

storage solutions to support the evolving 

entertainment experience. 

From a consumer's perspective, this means 

more reliable and faster downloads and a 

seamless streaming experience. In this current 

5G era where embedded solutions are 

pioneering the digital landscape, data storage 

plays a fundamental role in re-shaping the 

future of streaming. 

Undoubtedly, global streaming services will 

continue to compete for new and original 

content to excite existing subscribers and draw 

new audiences. However, these vast content 

libraries increasingly demand secure and 

effective storage solutions. This is especially so 

as streaming platforms continue to diversify 

their offerings, resulting in a spike in data 

volumes and the rise of significant storage 

challenges - particularly at the edge. It wouldn't 

be surprising to see smart devices have an 

average of 1TB of storage in the future to 

manage the growth of streaming data. In fact, 

a typical two-hour long movie in HD, for 

example, takes up about 6GB of storage. 

Along with this ever-increasing data volume 

comes significant demand for newer interfaces, 

flash-based storage, higher capacities with 

faster performance, longer data retention, 

and increased endurance and reliability. 

This level of performance will also play 

a crucial role when it comes to 

customer experience. In order to 

mitigate potential subscription fatigue and 

enhance customer loyalty, streaming platforms 

will need to focus on delivering a seamless 

digital experience. The expectation is that smart 

and handheld devices should provide an 

experience as seamless as the experience is 

with viewing on laptops and TV's. 

As the streaming landscape continues to 

evolve, there is a heightened focus on 

enhancing visual data. Streaming platforms are 

updating their content production guidelines, 

which influences content creation and the 

choice of camera production houses use, as a 

result. Over the next several years, consumers 

will witness the transition from 4K (3840 x 

2160 pixels) to 8K (7680 x 4320 pixels), even 

12K (12,288 x 6480 pixels) and beyond. While 

this advancement may offer a more immersive 

televisual and cinematic experience, it also 

presents challenges for handheld device 

streaming. 

To keep up with this evolution, smartphones 

and other mobile devices will require 

accelerated data processing capabilities. 

Additionally, flash memory will be imperative in 

maintaining ever-growing content quality - 

especially during the move from 4K to 8K. This 

may even extend to 10K or even 12K in the 

future, accompanied by heightened visual 

demands that may bring new and innovative 

ways of filmmaking. 

As the global streaming landscape continues 

to transform, driven by the escalating demands 

of consumers for subscription services, the role 

of data remains key in shaping the market. 

Data storage solutions will continue to drive 

and enable subscription video on demand 

(SVoD) accessibility via smart and handheld 

devices. With it, it ensures that entertainment of 

the future isn't far from reach. 

More info: www.westerndigital.com 




MAGAZINE

OPINION: 

OPINION: CYBER PROTECTION 

SHRINKING THE CYBERATTACK THREAT WINDOW 

ERIC HERZOG OF INFINIDAT DESCRIBES HOW THE COMPANY'S RECENTLY LAUNCHED INFINISAFE 

AUTOMATED CYBER PROTECTION OFFERING CAN HELP PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CYBERATTACKS 

place at some point - this is a somewhat 

inevitable situation for enterprises to 

acknowledge - the question now for security 

administrators becomes less about attack 

prevention and one of attack recovery. How 

can storage experts shrink the window of 

threat to their organisations once security 

systems have been compromised? And how 

do they minimise the impact of a cyberattack 

both internally and externally? 

The threat of a cyberattack has become 

so pronounced that in the 2023 survey 

of Fortune 500 CEOs, cybersecurity 

was cited as the #2 threat to their 

companies. These incidents are on the rise. 

As Professor Stuart Madnick from MIT wrote 

in a recent research paper, the number of 

data breaches between 2022 and 2023 

rose by 20% and this frequency continues to 

increase. It's not surprising because hackers 

want to wreak havoc and, in our data-driven 

society, breaches cause extensive damage 

and long-lasting suffering to enterprises and 

individuals alike. 

So, if enterprises are investing millions of 

pounds into their cyber protection armour and 

disaster recovery strategy, why are hackers still 

managing to profit from data disasters? One 

of the big contributors to organisational 

vulnerability is the lack of integration between 

primary and secondary storage infrastructure 

and the data centre-wide cyber security 

software applications employed to spot 

suspicious activity. 

MINIMISING IMPACT 

If we assume that a cyberattack will take 

It's impossible to keep cyberattacks quiet. 

New laws and regulations for reporting cyber 

incidents for public companies in the USA and 

specific regulations pertaining to and written by 

the European Union, have made knowledge of 

these attacks highly visible to the public. 

Part of the problem is that traditional storage 

backup methods using immutable snapshots 

are only effective to a point, because snapshot 

schedules are not automated. This means they 

are not running constantly and may even 

require manual intervention, which leaves 

dangerous gaps in data protection. 

Even replication means that data is available 

but not really protected, because once it is 

corrupted or encrypted, the compromised data 

can also be replicated, potentially causing 

even more havoc. Overcoming these problems 

is not a new challenge and has been part of 

the disaster recovery challenge for many years. 

Enterprises have been trying to protect 

themselves from these threats, typically by 

employing teams of people to monitor and 

manage their cybersecurity. In spite of this, it 

can still take hours to determine if someone 

should call a storage admin and say, "We 

detected something in server x, why don't you 

snapshot the data as soon as possible?". 

The reality is that this call often never 

happens, leaving the vulnerability window wide 




MAGAZINE

OPINION: 

OPINION: CYBER PROTECTION 

"Part of the problem is that traditional storage backup methods using immutable 

snapshots are only effective to a point, because snapshot schedules are not automated. 

This means they are not running constantly and may even require manual intervention, 

which leaves dangerous gaps in data protection. Even replication means that data is 

available but not really protected, because once it is corrupted or encrypted, the 

compromised data can also be replicated, potentially causing even more havoc." 

open for attackers to proliferate data 

corruption, encryption, or other attack vectors 

against enterprise data. For instance, if 

immutable snaps are taken four times a day, 

that means up to a 6-hour RPO (recovery 

point objective). Today, the amount of data 

that could be compromised in that timeframe 

can ruin a business. 

To help ameliorate these issues Infinidat has 

developed a unique new solution to solve this 

longstanding problem and reduce the threat 

window. InfiniSafe Automated Cyber Protection 

(ACP) is unique in allowing enterprises to 

regain control of the chaos that cyberattackers 

bring on, saving time, money and risks to 

reputation. It is available free for users of the 

new InfiniBox G4 family of InfiniBox and 

InfiniBox SSA enterprise storage solutions and 

has already been given rave reviews by 

storage and security industry analysts across 

the world. 

According to Krista Macomber, Research 

Director at the Futurum Group, "Infinidat's 

complete solutions have taken the lead by 

leveraging the syslog of security 

technologies, such as SIEM and SOAR to 

detect and respond to anomalies that belie 

potential threats." 

Storage analyst firm founder Chris Evans of 

Architecting IT, said, "Infinidat has carved out a 

unique leadership position as the only storage 

vendor to offer an automated enterprise 

storage cyber protection solution that 

seamlessly integrates with cyber security 

software applications." 

Andrew Buss, Senior Research Director, EMEA 

Future of Digital Infrastructure at IDC 

commented that "Infinidat has built on its 

proven and scalable storage platform to deliver 

a storage architecture that can deliver not only 

on today's demanding requirements, but also 

on future storage needs as application 

demands continue to inexorably increase." 

HOW DOES INFINISAFE ACP WORK? 

InfiniSafe ACP works to reduce the cyberattack 

threat window to enterprise data at the speed 

of compute, by automatically triggering a 

protection scheme to create immutable 

snapshots of any data within the InfiniBox SSA 

and InfiniBox platforms. These requests come 

directly from the enterprises' cyber security 

software environments, the SOC, SIEM or 

SOAR, as soon as any concerning changes or 

events are detected. 

Application environments like these have 

extensible interfaces and so tying them together 

with the well-defined InfiniSafe reference 

architecture provides a fully automated set of 

seamless capabilities. These capabilities can be 

orchestrated to proactively and quickly create 

immutable snapshots to protect the most 

critical primary data assets. 

InfiniSafe Cyber Detection can be integrated 

with ACP to take the process to the next step. 

InfiniSafe Cyber Detection performs deep 

scanning of block, file, and database stores by 

presenting immutable snapshots to a powerful 

AI-based scanning engine. This validates the 

data integrity and through AI-based machine 

learning, can identify any malicious changes as 

a result of the cyberattack. More importantly, 

the scanning process uses more than 200 data 

points to determine which data may have been 

compromised, with 99.99% accuracy. 

This ensures that any additional forensics are 

highly defined and easy to act on, by 

minimising any possible false positives. You 

need to be fast and accurate when dealing 

with a cyber event. Such a rapid, automated 

response means that full recovery from an 

attack can be guaranteed for entire snapshots 

of data, regardless of volumes. 

Being prepared for cyberattacks is everything 

today. It's not a matter of if cyber attackers will 

strike, it's a matter of when and how often. Bad 

actors will attempt to create chaos and gain 

leverage over your most critical data assets if 

you are not prepared. Knowing the state of 

your data by proactively keeping it protected 

beyond scheduled events, is a key component 

to reducing the threat window, gaining back 

leverage, and thwarting those looking to extort 

you by compromising your data. Now 

InfiniSafe ACP is making these goals easier for 

every enterprise to achieve. 

More info: www.infinidat.com 



STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

29

MANAGEMENT: IT STRATEGIES 

BEYOND THE TECHNOLOGY 

MARK LEWIS, HEAD OF 

PRODUCT MARKETING AT 

ZADARA, LOOKS AT THE 

EVOLUTION OF STORAGE AND 

COMPUTE IN THE AGE OF 

MODERN APPLICATIONS, AND 

HOW ORGANISATIONS CAN 

THRIVE IN AN INCREASINGLY 

DIGITAL WORLD 

IT infrastructure - the hardware, 

software, and data centres necessary to 

support the computing needs of an 

organisation - continue to evolve and 

change, with centralised and 

decentralised strategies floating in and 

out of favour every decade or so. Physical 

infrastructure, such as servers and storage 

devices, give way to virtual infrastructure, 

such as virtual machines, cloud services, 

and software-defined networking, and 

then the pendulum swings back again. 

Effective IT infrastructure, no matter the 

era, is essential for ensuring the security, 

and performance of an 

organisation's data. 

Today, one of the more critical 

discussions has come back 

around to the technical 

nuances of storage and 

computing. Terms like file, 

block, and object storage are 

commonplace, yet in this 

world of what's the best 

option a key question arises: 

do organisations truly care 

about the type of storage they 

employ, or are performance 

and Total Cost of Ownership 

(TCO) taking precedence in 

business decisions? 

The evolving nature of 

technology and its user's needs 

are the key factors in why 

we continually 

reshape how 

we 

architect, implement, and manage IT 

solutions. While traditional architectures 

can take weeks or even months to deploy, 

the era of modern applications has 

ushered in a transformative shift. Today, 

deploying containers can be completed in 

a matter of seconds, with the agility to 

scale up or down as needed. And maybe, 

most importantly, it is our customers that 

have driven this required level of service. 

AN OBJECT LESSON 

For instance, consider the evolution of 

object storage within an organisation. 

Object storage is highly scalable and is 

well-suited for storing large amounts of 

unstructured data, such as multimedia 

files, documents, and backups. For many 

enterprises, object storage was initially 

adopted as a cost-effective solution for 

storing unstructured data. Today, object 

storage has matured to accommodate 

diverse applications and use cases. From 

managing petabytes of medical images 

to empowering application developers 

with its versatile interface, object storage 

has emerged as a cornerstone in modern 

IT ecosystems. 

Despite the industry buzz surrounding 

Solid State Drives (SSD) or flash storage, 

the overall storage landscape today still 

remains diverse. Hard Disk Drives and 

even tape storage continue to play 

pivotal roles, with tape finding renewed 

relevance in cloud environments and as a 

safe, air-gapped way to ensure data 

security. The narrative of storage, though 

important, extends beyond just hardware 

discussions - it encompasses the broader 

spectrum of computing. 

The traditional computing architecture, 

characterised by CPU, memory, and 

cache, has persisted for decades. Yet, in 

the era of modern applications and with 




MAGAZINE

MANAGEMENT: IT STRATEGIES 

"Today, the conversation goes beyond discussing the technical components of 

networking, storage and compute infrastructure. Really, at its core, it is about finding the 

best ways to deploy and manage applications that scale with the organisation's needs, 

are cost-effective, and ensure the business is agile and innovative to keep ahead of the 

competition. Equally important, in today's ever market-driven economy, is the avoidance 

of lock-in, which is of paramount importance and has all too often been an area where 

hyperscalers have in the past let customers down." 

emerging AI models, notwithstanding the 

increase in adoption of GPUaaS, the 

focus is increasingly shifting towards 

platforms rather than siloed services. 

Storage platforms provide an easy to use 

centralised management interface for all 

resources, allowing administrators to 

monitor, provision, and manage storage 

across different environments. 

NO LONGER EITHER/OR 

These platforms can optimise 

performance by intelligently distributing 

data across storage resources based on 

workload characteristics and needs. The 

emphasis lies not only on performance 

but also on flexible operational and 

capital expenditure models. 

The differences between on-premises 

and cloud environments have evolved 

into a hybrid-cloud model, blending the 

best of both worlds. It's no longer a 

question of either/or but rather a 

strategic coming together of resources to 

optimise efficiency and scalability. 

The multi-cloud paradigm is gaining 

prominence, offering organisations the 

flexibility of choice to leverage various 

cloud providers or Software as a Service 

(SaaS) platforms. However, questions still 

exist surrounding how to manage the 

complexity of multiple cloud providers 

most easily in terms of networking, data 

management, compliance, optimising 

costs, the latency that sometimes exists 

when transferring data between different 

clouds and ensuring data remains secure 

at rest and in transit - all of these 

challenges raise questions about the 

readiness of vendors, service providers, 

and cloud platforms to meet the demands 

of a multi-cloud environment. 

Today, the conversation goes beyond 

discussing the technical components of 

networking, storage and compute 

infrastructure. Really, at its core, it is 

about finding the best ways to deploy and 

manage applications that scale with the 

organisation's needs, are cost-effective, 

and ensure the business is agile and 

innovative to keep ahead of the 

competition. Equally important, in today's 

ever market-driven economy, is the 

avoidance of lock-in, which is of 

paramount importance and has all too 

often been an area where hyperscalers 

have in the past let customers down. 

As businesses continue to undergo the 

pursuit of digital transformation, aligning 

their IT strategies with the broader 

continually evolving business objectives 

ensures the goals of the organisation are 

supported, whether it's enhancing 

customer experience, improving 

operational efficiency, or driving revenue 

growth. 

EMPOWERING THE BUSINESS 

Achieving this alignment requires a holistic 

approach that considers not only the 

technical requirements of the IT 

infrastructure but also the objectives and 

priorities of the organisation. It involves 

close collaboration between IT leaders and 

business stakeholders to understand the 

unique challenges and opportunities facing 

the organisation and develop IT strategies 

that can effectively address them. 

Whether it's storage, compute, or the 

broader IT ecosystem, the goal remains 

the same: enabling organisations to 

thrive in an increasingly digital world. As 

technology continues to evolve, so too 

must our approaches to architecture, 

implementation, and management. It's 

not merely about speeds and feeds but 

rather about empowering businesses to 

achieve their goals efficiently and 

effectively in the ever-evolving landscape 

of modern IT. 

More info: www.zadara.com 



STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

31

MANAGEMENT: DATA GOVERNANCE 

CURING YOUR DATA GOVERNANCE HEADACHES 

SYNITI'S HEAD OF PRESALES 

KEVIN WILD EXPLAINS WHAT 

MOST PEOPLE GET WRONG - 

AND HOW TO PUT IT RIGHT - 

WITH DATA GOVERNANCE 

How many times has someone told 

you that data is your 

organisation's most valuable 

asset? Although that's true, simply 

amassing vast quantities of data is not 

going to help your business grow. In fact 

having unruly data can actually have the 

opposite effect, with organisations that 

don't effectively manage their data often 

losing the competitive edge, with slower 

decision-making, compliance issues, 

delayed adoption of new technologies 

and more. 

This is widespread. A new UKI SAP User 

Group survey (info.syniti.com/ukisug- 

2024-survey) reports that 82% of 

respondents have data management 

challenges that will slow their 

organisation's adoption of AI 

technologies. In the same study, 73% say 

compliance is their main data 

management concern. Think of the 

potential that is being missed out on, 

along with the legal risks. All because 

data is not working for them. 

Although data governance headaches 

are created by users throughout the 

organisation, it's often the IT team that is 

called in to clean up. With that in mind, 

here are some common warning signs 

that show you need to overhaul your 

organisation's data governance: 

You lack a complete view of your data 

landscape: do you know what data your 

business collects, where it is stored, and 

who has access to it? If not, then data 

governance will always be challenging for 

your organisation. How can you 

effectively govern your data if you don't 

know where it is or what information it 

includes? You can't. 

You're up against GDPR, CCA and other 

regulatory demands: the General Data 

Protection Regulation and similar 

legislation hold businesses responsible for 

protecting consumer data. Compliance 

with these laws is critical, as the fines for 

violations can be severe. Failing to 

comply can also lead to reputational 




MAGAZINE

MANAGEMENT: DATA GOVERNANCE 

"Does the mere thought of migrating your data to a new 

platform send chills down your spine? Migrating even the 

most well-organised business data is a daunting task. 

Moving siloed, disjointed, poorly governed information to 

another solution can, in fact, make matters worse than if 

you had done nothing at all. Do yourself a favour and set 

the stage for a successful migration by first getting your 

data governance strategy in order." 

damage and falling customer trust. But 

staying GDPR compliant and meeting the 

demands of these regulatory acts can be 

tough, especially if your data governance 

strategy is in disarray. 

Your analytics team is struggling with 

untrustworthy data: analytics teams cannot 

support business processes if they don't 

have access to high-quality, trustworthy 

data. Determining whether your data 

quality is hindering your analytics 

processes is relatively easy-all you have to 

do is talk to your team. If your analysts 

have concerns about data quality, 

accessibility, or usability, it may be time to 

reassess your data governance strategy. 

Your siloed data has created a metadata 

mess: organising your metadata is a 

significant step towards better data 

governance. These small bits of 

information give better visibility and can 

be used to gather valuable insights. 

However, for metadata to really work for 

you, you must ensure your data isn't siloed 

across multiple disparate platforms. 

Similar categories of data scattered 

around your network can lead to a fullblown 

metadata mess. 

You're dreading a data migration: does 

the mere thought of migrating your data 

to a new platform send chills down your 

spine? Migrating even the most wellorganised 

business data is a daunting 

task. Moving siloed, disjointed, poorly 

governed information to another solution 

can, in fact, make matters worse than if 

you had done nothing at all. Do yourself 

a favour and set the stage for a successful 

migration by first getting your data 

governance strategy in order. 

THREE ESSENTIAL STEPS 

If what you've read so far seems familiar, 

it is time to optimise your data 

governance strategy. Here's how: 

1. Data First - prioritise your data 

Get to know your data. Focus effort on 

business-critical data, and the data that 

must be as accurate as possible first. 

Understand how that data links to your 

organisation's business objectives, how it 

supports decision-making, and where 

poor data accuracy has the most impact. 

And then drill down into how accurate 

that priority data is now, find out who 

owns it, and to what extent your business 

is being impacted by inaccuracy. 

2. Set meaningful goals 

We'd all love 100% accurate data (and 

actually some data does need that level of 

accuracy), but as data is ever-changing it 

may not be possible to guarantee that every 

single piece of data is correct. What level of 

inaccuracy can your business tolerate? 

3. Bring in the C-suite 

The C-suite should be bothered about 

data quality: ultimately it impacts the 

bottom line. Securing C-suite ownership of 

data objectives shows the leadership team 

is serious about data accuracy, and helps 

the rest of the organisation to understand 

the goals, and gives incentive to work 

towards them. Buy-in at all levels also 

means that it is not left to the IT team to 

guarantee data accuracy. 

With a strong data governance strategy in 

place, and with data headaches soothed, 

it's actually much more likely that adopting 

new AI tools or embarking on that complex 

digital transformation programme will be 

successful. And instead of firefighting, IT 

teams can actually begin to drive the 

innovation that will help their organisations 

to realise the true value of their data. 

More info: www.syniti.com 



STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

33

STRATEGY: AI 

AI FOCUS REQUIRES AN 

ON-PREM APPROACH 

MICHAEL MCNERNEY, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING AND 

NETWORK SECURITY AT SUPERMICRO, EXPLAINS WHY IT MAKES 

SENSE TO EQUIP YOUR ON-PREMISE DATA CENTRE WITH AI SERVERS 

AI is becoming a pervasive technology, 

requiring high-performance servers 

explicitly designed for AI training and 

inferencing. Organisations are faced with 

whether to use a public cloud infrastructure or 

purchase these systems and install them within 

an enterprise data centre. Several 

considerations must be considered for 

businesses to make an optimised choice and 

maximise their return on value. 

Much enterprise AI training relies on 

company data, which may be private to the 

organisation, or secured behind a firewall with 

specific permissions. Developing this within an 

on-premise data centre makes sense as an 

enterprise may have stricter requirements for 

their data than a public cloud, with more 

robust and customised cyber security 

measures in place. 

In many industries, data may only be stored in 

specific geographic locations. By keeping data 

onsite, businesses have total control of where 

the data is archived. When using a public cloud 

where data must be uploaded, there may not 

be a guarantee that such data storage 

guidelines can be adhered to, especially when 

considering cloud-based backups. 

When purchasing GPU servers, budgets and 

operating expenses need to be accurate. If 

not, the power required to run the servers 

may be detrimental to business expenditure. 

Conversely, basing AI infrastructure within a 

public cloud can result in unpredictable costs, 

especially when looking at the levels of data 

transference. In addition, reserving GPU 

instances without using them can also drive 

up costs. 

There are many types of GPU server 

available on the market today. A GPU server's 

specific configuration and capability may not 

be available in a public cloud. Acquiring 

servers configured for the type of AI training or 

inferencing workflows and based on an 

organisation's needs can result in lower costs 

and more satisfied employees and customers. 

Additionally, GPUs may not even be needed 

for some workloads in the AI pipeline. Today's 

newest CPUs have significant AI processing 

power on the CPU itself, which can lead to 

acceptable performance and lower costs for 

the servers. 

While there are various methods to estimate 

the cost of training a model of a particular 

size and number of GPUs available, many 

need to be continuously retrained with 

updated parameters and data to improve 

inference accuracy. However, retraining 

mechanisms can take as long as the original 

training, depending on how much new data is 

fed in. In an on-premise data centre, the 

systems can be used repeatedly, whereas, in 

the public cloud, expenses can grow with 

each retraining iteration. 

While the cloud is recognised for allowing 

applications to scale out significantly, servers 

may not always be available. With an onpremise 

data centre, policies for scaling can 

be implemented within the enterprise without 

having to negotiate with third-party 

companies (and perhaps pay more for 

unused reservations). 

There are many software choices to consider 

when creating an efficient and effective AI 

training solution. A public, shared cloud 

provider may not have all the available 

components, which may require additional 

setup and testing for each instance acquired in 

a public cloud infrastructure. 

Additionally, if servers from various vendors 

are certified with the same software, switching 

from one vendor to another is possible. 

However, moving from one cloud provider to 

another is more complex and time-consuming 

when using a public cloud. 

Implementing an effective and efficient onpremise 

AI-focused data centre requires 

understanding the performance requirements 

for the workloads that best suit the enterprise. 

When properly designed, these can decrease 

the time to get results for AI training and deliver 

low latency inference results and decisions 

tuned to the type of model. An on-premise data 

centre can be uniquely configured at a low cost 

to respond to the needs of the enterprise. 

Understanding workloads, the amount of data, 

the fine-tuning of the AI workflow, and in-house 

expertise with various software layers will help 

determine the best option for the organisation. 

More info: www.supermicro.com 




MAGAZINE

The future is here. 

Tiered Backup Storage 

• Fastest backups 

• Fastest restores 

• Comprehensive security with ransomware recovery 

• Scalability for fixed-length backup window 

• Low cost up front and over time 

Thank you so much 

to all who voted, and 

congratulations to our fellow 

Storage Awards 2024 winners! 

Visit our website to learn more 

about ExaGrid’s award-winning 

Tiered Backup Storage. 

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