Three Major Data Storage Trends

CIO Applications| Wednesday, August 04, 2021

Data Fabrics enable data centers to separate how they store data from the actual place in which it is stored, allowing them to handle data in a hardware-agnostic manner.

Fremont, CA: There are still many data centers around, and they continue to play an important role in IT infrastructures despite a variety of physical security risks. That isn't to suggest they haven't evolved during that time.

Here are three major data storage trends:

Software-Defined Storage

As usually defined, Data Fabrics rely on a set of software tools. These enable data centers to separate how they store data from the actual place in which it is stored, allowing them to handle data in a hardware-agnostic manner. Over the years, this method has been dubbed a variety of titles, the most recent of which is composable infrastructure.

This type of software abstraction offers several benefits, the most important of which is that it improves the average data center's flexibility and agility. However, it's important to note that the "typical" data center was not designed with software-defined storage in mind.

New Bottlenecks

New constraints for data centers are rising in tandem with – and in some cases because of – the emergence of new technologies. But, for most, the difficulty of maintaining systems in which different sorts of data must be accessible to wholly different requirements is the primary limitation on the service they can offer clients, rather than the raw speed at which data can be sent to customers.

As a result, the usual approach of contracting data center services is changing. Most of them are still governed by service level agreements or SLAs, but today's SLAs are far more complex than those of even a few years ago. It could include, for example, varying uptime and data speed requirements for various types of data.

Container-Native Storage

The migration to container-native architectures is perhaps the most significant change in the way data centers are managed. As a result of these changes, data center operators will need to ensure they have competence in container-native storage. This will be critical to compete with other data storage providers and meet client expectations.

These changes will lead to an ongoing revolution in the sector for data center managers and engineers. However, they also mean that providing excellent service to clients today includes much more than simply sourcing the best storage and disc arrays, though that is still crucial. Rather, data center managers should be aware that the current approach of defining and implementing data storage — through software rather than hardware — means that their sector is rapidly evolving.