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Editorial Type: Comment     Date: 01-2016    Views: 993      





Our first edition of 2016 includes a raft of opinion and analysis pieces from vendors and experts across the storage sector

One piece that will doubtless stir some debate is our report on WD's annual survey into storage purchasing, which suggests that reliability has become the key factor in buying decisions, rather than cost.

"The findings of our survey underscore the increasing value of data, where dependable access through reliable storage systems and devices is more critical than ever before," said Dave Tang, senior vice president at Western Digital about the report. And it certainly looks that way: when given a choice among five criteria, 39% of IT decision makers surveyed cite reliability as the most important factor in purchasing data storage, compared to only 25% that cite cost.

It may be that there is a larger shift occurring that is driving this change in perceptions. A huge majority of respondents (over 80%) said that the Internet of Things, big data and mobility are driving a need to change their data centres. Those surveyed also recognise that access to cold data is critical. Their plans for infrastructure investments demonstrate that traditional "store it and forget it" data archiving/cold storage solutions like tape are no longer sufficient for extracting the value of data, as more than half are not storing all the data they need to process and analyse.

So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised to see cost becoming less of a concern when compared to the ability of a solution to reliably serve a business toward its long term aims. Indeed the growth in big data analytics seems to be helping organisations to see the value in the right storage investments. 81% of the WD research respondents said that they are investing in data analytics to prioritise infrastructure investments and mine internal data assets. The survey also shows that Cloud infrastructure budget and build-out initiatives have increased in order to better store and access the growing trove of data.

Perhaps we are the start of a sea-change in how storage (and indeed other IT resource) is being purchased, as user organisations recognise the value of investment in emerging technologies - technologies without which they might struggle to keep up with a rapidly changing business environment.

by David Tyler
Editor

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