ST2401

STRATEGY:
STRATEGY: DATA MANAGEMENT
DATA MANAGEMENT CRUCIAL TO AI/HPC STRATEGIES
MARCO POZZONI, EMEA STORAGE SALES DIRECTOR AT LENOVO, EXAMINES HOW DATA
MANAGEMENT IS ENABLING ORGANISATIONS TO REAP THE BENEFITS OF AI
Every organisation today lives and breathes
data, and the pressure to unlock value
from this resource is growing with each
passing year. By 2025, the world will produce
181 zettabytes of data each year, with online
consumption having increased a staggering 30
percent in the past year.
For business leaders, the challenge they face
is more complex than simply keeping control of
the data constantly being harvested from
everything from IoT devices to medical scans:
it's the
ability to sift through this tide of information for
useful insights at speed. Successful business
leaders will be those who can act quickly to
eliminate data silos, deploying technologies
such as AI and machine learning at the edge to
turn this data into business value in real time.
Data management is increasingly important in
allowing business leaders to monetise data at
speed, bringing together data from the cloud,
on-premises machines and at the edge, and
enabling business leaders to run AI workloads.
It's also powering innovative research around
the world, helping unravel some of the thorniest
issues facing the human race. Data
management, high-performance computing
and artificial intelligence are coming together
to enable a new breed of data-driven start-up
which is helping to break down boundaries in
emerging fields such as personalised medicine.
Choosing the right data management and
storage solutions has become increasingly
important for businesses looking to reap the
benefits of technologies such as HPC and AI,
with the right solutions offering the simplicity,
speed and security which can enable business
leaders to forge fearlessly into the future.
UNRAVELLING COMPLEXITY
The data management landscape
which most companies face has
become incredibly complex,
with data coming from
everything from cameras in
warehouses to customer
relationship management
(CRM) systems, and
existing across cloud
and on-premises
systems.
Business leaders
also need to
consider the security of customer data. Despite
crackdowns by law enforcement in Europe and
the U.S., ransomware levels have hit all-time
highs in 2023, with 81% of organisations
saying they have been affected at least once,
according to SpyCloud. The ability to secure
data, and defend against ransomware attacks,
is increasingly important.
Simplicity is key to securely extracting value
from data. Customers require data
management solutions which are interoperable,
so that vital insights are not marooned in siloed
systems or left vulnerable. It's important to find
solutions that combine the simplicity and
flexibility of cloud with the security and high
performance of on-premises solutions.
Storage is becoming an increasingly important
consideration for business leaders, having
grown from being an afterthought in the world
of IT to being an essential part of company
infrastructure. As the data generated by
businesses continues to grow, IT leaders need
to ensure they choose the right storage
technologies.
Standard hard disks are increasingly too slow
to deliver the performance required, particularly
when it comes to deploying AI workloads at the
edge. Flash solutions can offer customers a
rapid way to deploy AI. Lenovo's solution
includes storage based on software-defined
storage principles. This concept enables
customers with data-hungry AI workloads to
scale up storage capacity without sacrificing
performance. Such solutions will continue to
grow in importance in the coming years.
A GAME-CHANGER FOR DATA
MANAGEMENT
Bringing AI to the data is increasingly vital for
business leaders, enabling them to put data to
work immediately. This difference is crucial:
06 STORAGE Jan/Feb 2024
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