Trends to Watch in 2017

As the new year begins, it's time to look at the technology trends that are expected to shape the storage industry. While some promising solutions may face challenges, the following trends seem poised for success.

Flash Storage Takes Center Stage

High-capacity flash storage is quickly becoming a major player. Companies like Samsung have released 2.5-inch SAS flash drives with 15TB of capacity, and Seagate is preparing to roll out 60TB 3.5-inch SAS drives. With decreasing capital and operational expenses, flash storage is making its way into tier 1 storage, with small and mid-sized organizations now adopting all-flash arrays. This trend provides substantial performance improvements, slashes energy costs, and helps smaller companies stay competitive.

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The Rise of NVMe Technology

NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is becoming essential as SSDs continue to grow. Traditional storage protocols like SAS and SATA were designed for spinning disks and cannot keep up with the speed of SSDs. NVMe, however, offers much higher bandwidth and improved queuing, allowing SSDs to reach their full potential. Expect SSD performance to skyrocket with NVMe integration in the near future.

Software-Defined Storage (SDS)

Software-defined storage (SDS) is gaining traction as organizations look to simplify their storage environments. SDS separates storage management from the hardware, allowing administrators to use software to control storage across various systems. With SDS, businesses can rely on commodity hardware for performance and functionality, making storage more cost-effective. As hardware costs decrease, SDS solutions are becoming increasingly popular among enterprises looking to manage their data efficiently.

Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDC)

In the software-defined data center (SDDC), entire infrastructures are controlled and delivered by software. Networking, storage, and servers are all virtualized, which means provisioning, configuration, security, and administration are decoupled from the hardware. Moving to an SDDC involves significant changes, both in infrastructure and in IT roles. However, the benefits of greater agility, cost savings, and improved cloud service deployment will drive more organizations to make the transition in 2017.

The Continued Relevance of 32G Fibre Channel

Despite the rise of cloud and Ethernet-based solutions, Fibre Channel is not disappearing anytime soon. The introduction of 32G Fibre Channel (FC) will keep it relevant in 2017. With the increased use of flash storage, NVMe, and related technologies, storage networks face new performance challenges. 32G FC, with its high-speed capabilities, remains crucial to meeting these demands, and many vendors are already supporting 32G FC in their storage arrays.

The storage industry is undergoing significant transformations, and the technologies outlined above are setting the stage for future advancements. While challenges remain, the continued evolution of flash storage, NVMe, SDS, and SDDC is likely to shape the storage landscape for years to come.

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