Storage has not yet been standardized, commoditized, and homogenized like many other parts of the business technology world. Storage processes and procedures are not as automated as many other data center processes and procedures. Businesses are constantly buying more storage as the amount of data they need to keep for longer and longer periods of time keeps growing. All of those emails and videos and PowerPoint presentations and spreadsheets have to be stored somewhere. Storage is complicated and hard to do well.
Storage is really interesting, and storage virtualization, solid-state drives, data de-duplication, file virtualization, and other developing trends are adding the spice of innovation to an industry already in ferment.
There are differences between backup, mirroring, replication, continuous data protection, archiving, and disaster recovery. I can't provide a clear definition of each, but I do know there are differences.
People mean different things when they talk about "storage utilization," which explains much of my confusion when I tried to compare the competing claims by various vendors. Special thanks to John Haight of the Forsythe Solutions Group Inc. , who writes the "Ask an Expert" column for the Byte and Switch Website. He recently described and explained the six stages of storage utilization, which gave me a framework for thinking about storage utilization. Read this if you're ever unsure what somebody means when talking about storage utilization.
I've also repeatedly been told at least one thing that I don't think is true: "Storage managers are very conservative." I think a better word is "cautious." They're not going to jump on the latest and greatest new tech fad or trend just to be cool. There is too much riding on backups working, on archives working, on disaster recovery working, on being able to deliver the right data to the right application or user at the right time. Storage managers can't afford to take chances with unproved technology or unknown vendors.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
