Here are more of my predictions for 2009:
- IT professionals will focus on optimization. I should end my blog right here. Nothing is more important this year.
- You can already see the hype beginning around Cloud Computing for 2009. Yes, some of it is real but much of it is still very early and it will literally take years to evolve. Leveraging services in the Cloud is not a new concept but there is more buzz around it than ever before. Cloud Storage comes in many different forms already including email and photos but much of that is personal data. Cloud Storage for corporate data is still in its very early days with backup and archival data being the biggest uses. However, using Cloud Storage for mission-critical applications is pretty far off. I am not talking about off-site storage but an Internet-based Cloud Storage solution - I like the concept but these things take time to become mainstream.
- Green IT will once again be a big push for IT vendors in 2009 but IT professionals will still be more interested in power, cooling and floor space consumption. I encourage IT end users to embrace Green IT and the IT vendors to provide incentives for their customers who take this initiative seriously. Unfortunately “Green IT” will be the rhetoric and power, cooling and floor space will be the reality - it would be nice if both were in the reality bucket.
- The Server Virtualization wars will heat up. Server virtualization should continue to proliferate in a down economy but this year Microsoft will battle VMware in earnest. Microsoft will gain some real success because end users are looking for an alternative to VMware. But VMware will continue to dominant.
- Intelligent Tiering needs to be a priority with an emphasis on moving data transparently to lower tiers. There is immediate payback for this and there are great platforms to do this with today. I’ve been called out on bringing this up in the past but it is extremely valuable and can save ton of money. Based on conversations I’ve had with end users this will be a big push and data deduplication will play a role in this as well. There are different ways to skin this cat - whether it’s using external storage virtualization or archiving software - this “boring” topic must become a priority in 2009.
2009 will be about being practical. We have to use common sense. I think we are all pretty sick of the same old hype being thrown at us - we need real data. We need education and information on how to optimize our environments. The IT vendors that can provide actual insight on how to navigate through this storm will be the winner.
Comments (8 )
ianhf on 25 Jan 2009 at 1:29 am
Tony,
You been reading my internal strategy docs & powerpoints again?
- External expenditure on tech will plummet this year, as far as I can see 2009 is the year of actually using the tech & shelfware previously purchased.
- Cloud, yup lots of it starting in 2009. We’ve got private and public cloud stuff running now and major plans for 09. But will take a while for the traditional BSS ISVs to catch up - but if they don’t they’ll be saying goodbye…
- GreenIT, agree and already arguing that ‘usefulness/performance’ need to be include in context of GreenIT KPIs. Sadly the ‘pragmatic phased approach’ will mean they are not in phase 1 and thus will be forgotten in future
- Server Virtualisation - yup MS pushing major heat on VMWare, no-additional cost stuff will always win over better but costs… Will be interesting to see just how far Cisco bundle VMWare & x86 & Nexus together to ease this… Also be interesting to see how this plays out versus cloud. And Orchestration will be a major factor here as the early consolidation phase matures and we move into dynamic & optimisation phases.
- Intelligent tiering, yup this is where all the storage focus must be on in 2009. Fully Automates Storage Tiering, Virtually Automated Storage Tiering, Wide Striping, Dynamic/Thin Provisioning - call it what you like this is the pervasive tech for SAN storage in 2009. Storage tiered by QoS / Policy in an dynamic, automated and transparent fashion at the ’sub-LUN’ level are the key. We’re investing time & focus on this heavily in 09.
Totally agree - 2009 is the year of being creative and imaginative and using our brains, rather than simply writing cheques to push to problem away for a few years - should be a good ride
Cheers
Ian
tony on 25 Jan 2009 at 8:02 am
Ian - once again great feedback - some of your comments on this and other blogs should be blog entries themselves! Great information on your priorities - it is good for other IT professionals to read and see what their peers are doing.
I can’t emphasize this enough - I’ve spoken to different end users that understand that the economy is an issue but it hasn’t sunk in yet that this will really impact them and more is coming. The analogy I use is that a warning for a level 5 hurricane has been issued and people aren’t evacuating.
Jered Floyd on 26 Jan 2009 at 3:09 pm
Tony,
I can’t argue with any of these points, I think they’re absolutely right. Does it really surprise you that “green” is largely about rhetoric, though, and is that a bad thing? The greenest thing you can do is reduce power consumption, and the fact that it’s financially responsible to do so is even better. The way to make companies truly commit to goals of social and ethical value is by making doing the right thing be an economic win as well. The demand is there. Overall, Green is a lie (I wrote about this recently on my blog at http://permabit.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/the-green-is-a-lie/ ), but power savings are very important.
Lower cost data tiers are probably the most important thing this year. Too much data is being kept on primary storage at a cost of $30 to $50/GB, and businesses just can’t stand for continually buying more each quarter. Deduplication is a key technology here, but it’s important to apply it earlier in the process than VTL, where it’s commonly found today.
Additionally, the price must be competitive even before dedupe, because prices are so variable.
In this economic crisis is the statement “nobody ever got fired for buying from <three-letter-company>” no longer holds true. Storage requirements aren’t slowing, so if you want to hold on to your job you’d best consider alternative storage options that can save you money. Companies like HDS will need to show that they’re willing to eat their own high-end market to avoid losing it to competitors. I think HDS could really use a extraordinarily low cost, ultra-reliable grid-based archive tier — I think I might be able to help. Shall we talk?
An archive storage solution is significantly cheaper than existing primary storage, and something like our Permabit Enterprise Archive integrates into any environment like any other NAS device. We think we have the only truly scalable deduplication solution on the market today, so hundreds of terabytes of storage can be deduplicated as part of the same storage pool, completely transparently.
I’ve written a bit more about the economics of the financial crisis in my blog, please stop by and let me know your thoughts!
Regards,
Jered Floyd
CTO, Permabit
tony on 26 Jan 2009 at 8:39 pm
Jered - great to talk to you again. Interestingly certain things move slow in the data center and we both agree that moving dormant data to lower tiers is smart. But the problem is multi-fold - it includes the process of identifying and then moving the data and then figuring out what to move it to. Actually HDS does have a clustered archive tier - HCAP - which was a product they acquired - the Archivas ArC solution. Implementing an active archive is a holistic problem and the way to help the customer is to address it in this manner.
I will go reaD your blog and I look forward to further discussions via social media and other methods.
Tony
2009–the Year of Storage Optimization « Storage Optimization on 28 Jan 2009 at 10:26 am
[...] 2009–the Year of Storage Optimization Posted in Analyst by storageoptimization on the January 28, 2009 Tags: Storage optimization, Tony Asaro Storage consultant Tony Asaro cut straight to the chase on his HDS blog with his top prediction for 2009: “IT professionals will focus on optimization. I should end my blog right here. Nothing is more important this year.” We couldn’t agree more, Tony. As data volumes grow – and budgets shrink –doing more with less is going to be the most important theme of storage for 2009 and the foreseeable future. HDS is already recognized as the leader in many of the most important optimizations available in block storage. The next frontier is optimization in file storage. This includes content-aware compression and content-aware dedupe for online NAS, active archives, and content depots. Being able to store two, 10, or 20 times more file data on a given amount of high performance virtualized HDS physical storage is not only now possible, but an example of vendor technology and user need intersecting at just the right time. [...]
tony on 28 Jan 2009 at 1:42 pm
This last comment - from a blog entitled Storage Optimization - is from an emerging vendor called Ocarina Networks. They do have very cool stuff - data de-duplication for unstructured data. Compelling technology that optimizes and dedupes image and video files as well as other content. Their post is a bit of a commercial for their wares - but hey - that is what guerilla marketing is all about. Jared did the same thing in his comment
Michael Burgess on 03 Feb 2009 at 7:02 am
I guess that the spell checker wasn’t working when this blog was created..
Until the Internet is locked down, secure, and we have a stable proprietary Operating system, customers who value their data will keep that data close to their business so that they can keep an eye on it.
All of the other unwashed masses who do not value their data can jam it out there and good luck.. you’ll need it.
tony on 03 Feb 2009 at 7:26 am
Michael,
Actually this version of WordPress doesn’t have a spell check - thanks for pointing that out to me. I think I got them all.
I agree that there will be a lot of issues with Cloud - but there are ways around this - including sending secure backup data, remote replication, etc. Additionally, you will see startups investing heavily in trying to make the public cloud more legitimate. But it is a process and we are just at the threshold - there will be many bumps in the road - and it will take time to evolve.