Current Filter: Storage>>>>>>

   

We asked no less than seven leading lights from across the industry to give us their thoughts - and as you'd expect, we got seven very different viewpoints. But whoever we asked, from analysts to hardware vendors, from emerging tech developers to consultants, a few words seemed to come up every single time. Dominating the whole conversation, perhaps predictably, was the word 'cloud' - but even here, the things being said varied wildly:

"Businesses will evolve from thinking about client/server architectures to a client/cloud mindset; the client will be more than just the PC/laptop, it will be a whole host of devices"… "The economics of managing email in the cloud will be very appealing to many organisations. However, it will become clear that the search technologies provided by many cloud vendors are not sufficiently robust for eDiscovery and investigation"… "In 2014, to get more from the cloud, businesses will start to move away from working within one rigid cloud model. Instead of outsourcing to just one Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and buying an off-the-shelf package, businesses will expect to be able to work with a CSP that knows them inside-out." See the full story starting on page 28 - and later in 2014, look out for a new magazine launch from BTC, publishers of Storage, to address the continuing interest in Cloud services and hosting.

Elsewhere in this issue we hear from Joe Disher of Overland, who suggests three core 'good habits' of storage optimisation that any business needs to adopt, while CommVault's Michiel von der Crone offers some strategic insights regarding mobile data protection. Steve Mackey of SpectraLogic shares his views on long term retention strategies, based on research they commissioned last year - and it makes for sobering reading: "The survey revealed that 62% of organisations rarely delete data and grapple with the challenge of managing long-term data storage. Furthermore 68% of participants said that they manually analyse and move their long-term data to different locations, and only delete limited amounts of stored data."

Going back to our predictions for 2014, will a greater reliance on cloud-based storage relieve this issue, or simply provide another excuse not to address it at all?

David Tyler
david.tyler@btc.co.uk