The future of storage systems

Mark Re, Seagate Senior Vice President and CTO

Global data growth, supported by the emergence and widespread use of new technologies, accelerated rapidly in 2015. Storing and managing these huge amounts of data is becoming an urgent problem, and in this connection, Mark Re, senior vice president and technical director of Seagate, predicts that with great probability in 2016, the situation in the field of data storage and data security will change dramatically.

Absolutely each of us creates new data every hour and every day - at work or in everyday life. Three years ago, it would have taken 600 billion DVDs to host all the data that humanity produced annually. By 2020, the world will generate 40 zbytes of information annually - more than 5,200 GB for each inhabitant of the planet. This amount of data is equivalent to 1 million photos or 1500 films in HD-quality. And that time is not far off (it is quite possible that it will come as early as this year) when there will be more data than opportunities for storing them.
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Although conversations about Big Data and the Internet of things have been going on for a long time, they have become particularly relevant in the last year or two. As mobile communications, cloud computing, and technologies based on the “Internet of things” sensors are increasingly being introduced into everyday life, companies and ordinary users should equally be responsible for the data they create and for finding the right way for them. storage. The need for secure storage models that are able to provide access to huge amounts of data in real time is becoming increasingly obvious, and this pressing question is being asked more and more often, which, of course, is correct.

In 2015, we learned and read about a variety of technological innovations in the field of data storage. Our dictionary is rapidly replenished with new terms related to storage methods: helium hard drives and more powerful accelerating flash cards, high-performance kinetic computation, and emergency cloud recovery services. And although there are plenty of options - as well as capacious abbreviations for describing them - the real difficulties lie in determining how to use each of them with the greatest efficiency to solve a specific problem.

For example, ordinary families with children want to keep their personal data, perhaps with the same degree of security as global corporations or insurance companies. From a practical point of view, the ways of meeting the needs of the latter are naturally different, but in both cases the storage space is not an endless resource. So the way data is stored and managed definitely needs to change. All interested parties will have to develop a strategic plan and apply an integrated approach to solving such a complex task.

This problem, as well as the more general consequences of the so-called “Fourth Revolution”, became the key topic of discussion at the World Economic Forum, held in Davos in January of this year. The forum was devoted to the growing awareness among industry leaders and states of the need to formulate a strategic approach to how to manage this digital revolution, including in relation to the potential threats and opportunities that it promises. According to the general conclusion of its participants, despite the fact that the rapid spread of automation equipment leads to a frightening blurring of the boundaries between the physical, digital and biological spheres of life, it undoubtedly brings positive results in the form of increased competition and economic growth.

The main daily result of automation, actively implemented in enterprises, is the accelerated creation and dissemination of data. At the same time, it turns out that investments in technology need to be planned - only in this way can we ensure reliable management, safety of the generated data and extracting the maximum benefit from them. For specific companies, this means that a key success factor will be the recognition of the importance of taking data storage into account in functional and cost-effective infrastructure planning — strategic and operational measures such as choosing the best CRM system and appropriate application development tools need to be taken. The right choice at the right moment is the most important step towards strengthening the future positions of business in a volatile market.

From these perspectives, it is safe to say that in 2016 the situation in the data storage industry will change dramatically, and I am very curious how it will evolve. We are on the verge of change, in the implementation of which we will develop cost-effective and reliable solutions for various categories of customers. The problem of finding and implementing these solutions is by no means simple, but one cannot say that it is insurmountable.