ST2401

ROUNDTABLE: SOFTWARE
"For vendors, it does force some choices in the degree of
hardware freedom. The more degrees of freedom offered,
the higher the complexity in software development and
testing. Customers ultimately value freedom of choice, not
only for the initial deployments - but to be able to buy the
most cost effective hardware at any later time when scaling
out the system, or to be able to get preferential pricing from
other platform vendors." - Paul Speciale, Scality
solutions." Kerns from Futurum Group agrees
as to the impact on staff, and feels forward
planning is required: "Ultimately it becomes a
staffing issue. There are increased support
requirements and it may require someone with
more capabilities than a storage
administrator."
Andy Buss, Senior Research Director, IDC,
also sees training is required: "For softwaredefined
storage to be a success, companies
need to be driving the full benefits of
automation and AIOps that come with it. IDC
research shows that only around a quarter of
companies in Europe today have the skills as
well as sufficiently transformed IT infrastructure
to be able to achieve this today. To change this
takes time, investment and training and highlevel
management support."
FUTURE OUTLOOK
As software's evolution has caused much
disruption thus far, we ask: "What does the
future of software in data storage look like?"
Bloor's Norfolk sees further disruption as
positive, and foretells, "Established players will
need to evolve fast; new players will have
opportunities - and may then get bought by
the big established players."
IDC Europe's Buss sees a shift from data
storage to data management: "As storage
becomes more software defined, we also
expect to see more emphasis on data
management and manipulation rather than
focusing on architecting complex storage
systems."
Similarly, Spectra Logic's Hoover foretells the
further growth of systems capable of unifying
data, whatever the location: "The option for
organisations to deploy a one-vendor software
storage solution for applications running in
multiple locations will simplify the procurement
and management of storage, while reducing
costs. This will in turn drive storage vendors to
be competitive by focusing on innovation and
more rapidly delivering advanced features.
With the increased adoption of softwaredefined/software-based
storage, we will likely
notice a decline in hardware-only storage
solutions." Acronis' Ivanyuk agrees, "The
industry has to evolve and the hardware
solutions market will shrink. Software-defined
solutions will grow in numbers and features,
dominating the market."
Peer Software's Jimmy Tam predicts, "As
much as most companies want a one-size-fitsall
approach for enterprise storage the reality
is that the future of storage will be even more
distributed across edge, data centre, and
cloud since for performance reasons the data
will need to be close to where the end-user or
application resides or where the data is either
created or analysed."
Hammerspace's Presley sees this future as
already here, "Most organisations are already
running workloads and applications in
multiple locations. The evolution of these
software packages from vendors will help
reduce the manual work needed to be done
by IT, automate a lot of the data placement
decisions, and reduce the need for custom/inhouse
built data orchestration scripting."
We are on a journey to fully explore the
capabilities of software in data storage and
there is no going back. Software in data
storage has been a disruptive force thus far,
causing dynamic competitive shifts resulting in
significant innovation, the liberation of
resources, greater efficiency, and the freedom
to access and manage data from any
location. Vendors and end users alike will
need to adapt to the impact this brings. As for
the challenges, it seems they will naturally
equalise - as Aristotle wrote, "Water finds its
own level." ST
www.storagemagazine.co.uk
@STMagAndAwards Jan/Feb 2024
STORAGE
MAGAZINE
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