The new year brings renewed hope and optimism. But what can we expect in 2020?

NVMe Finally Arrives
Although anticipated for years, NVMe adoption is finally happening. NVMe helps unlock the potential of SSDs, which are now becoming a staple in data centers due to decreasing costs. SSDs offer superior performance over spinning disks, but they are limited by SATA/SAS connectivity, which was designed for traditional hard drives. NVMe, however, is tailored for the greater speeds of SSDs.

In 2020, vendors are offering storage arrays with NVMe-enabled tiers, and all-flash NVMe platforms are emerging. The sales of NVMe systems are growing faster than those of SATA/SAS, hybrid, or all-disk arrays. NVMe is predicted to follow the same path as SSDs, initially reserved for high-performance enterprise workloads before becoming commonplace for general storage tasks, even for smaller enterprises.

Life on the Edge
Predicting the proliferation of IoT is hardly bold—it's already happening. Some forecasts predict 20 billion IoT devices in service this year, generating vast amounts of data. However, moving all this data into data centers or clouds for processing is impractical.

Enter edge computing: the concept of collecting, storing, and analyzing data locally at the network’s perimeter. This reduces bandwidth consumption and speeds up business intelligence. Yet, pushing computing and storage to the edge presents challenges, especially with the need for fast, robust storage solutions. A new generation of solutions from storage and server vendors will address the specific demands of edge computing, enabling analytics and even AI at the edge.

Edge solutions must be secure, as data from devices like video surveillance may only need to be stored temporarily, and there may be no IT staff on-site to safeguard against hacks or theft.

SDS & HCI Are Here to Stay
Software-defined storage (SDS) and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) are maturing technologies addressing many enterprise infrastructure pain points. SDS separates storage resources from hardware, allowing more flexibility, efficiency, agility, and control. With SDS, the location of storage hardware becomes irrelevant, making it a solution for hybrid cloud complexities where storage pools are physically distant but linked by business needs.

HCI combines compute, storage, and networking into single appliances, simplifying management. These devices are ideal for remote sites. The key question for 2020 is how vendors will leverage SDS and HCI for edge computing needs. Will we see HCI nodes distributed across the landscape, centrally managed from data centers? Combining everything in one device is appealing, especially if these devices can be centrally managed.

Storage Security is More Critical Than Ever
Data security has always been critical, but in 2020, the stakes are higher. Hackers are more sophisticated, and the rise of data generated outside data centers adds to the complexity. With more data flowing from external sources and the increase in IoT devices, data security challenges are escalating.

While advances in cloud security and data backup have been made, the growing volume of remote data creates new risks. Offices without on-site IT staff and the IoT sensors spread across various locations are vulnerable. In response, new solutions, many based on SDS and HCI technologies, will emerge to ensure the integrity of data from creation to business intelligence, regardless of its origin. However, a cohesive U.S. federal privacy law to regulate these issues is unlikely in 2020.

These are the predictions for data storage trends in 2020, reflecting an evolving landscape where technological advances are pushing boundaries and creating new opportunities and challenges.

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