Storage outlook for 2013: Big data, clouds remain the main theme

And by the end of the year, for the storage sector, too much has happened, the big data quickly become it hot words, and large data-related large data-derivative industry has been booming. 2012 Big Data from the sky, the rapid occupation of science and technology newspapers, hybrid cloud storage emerging, NAS storage to reproduce the scenery, flash technology and integrated infrastructure is also among the mainstream, can be said that the 2012 storage market boom anomaly.

Here we take a look at the 2012 storage one-year field, see the storage industry those aspects of the year have been a great development, for 2013 years or later the storage industry more amazing development ready.

1. Big data boom will continue more solutions will appear

With the progress of science and technology and the change of people's life style, the product of data is change more convenient and quick, which brings about a large increase of data products (Volume). At the same time, the number of devices producing data today is so varied that data types are greatly increased (produced), and there are some fleeting opportunities behind the data. Rapid Capture (Velocity) is required to eventually obtain value from the data (value).

Large Data 4 "V", the first three "V" is the large data processing and analysis, the last "V" is the ultimate goal of large data to be achieved. With the advent of the big data age, people need to realize the analysis of large data through the innovation of technology, and use storage and file system storage technology to design and realize the application of large-scale equipment.

This is a "big Data age", major IT vendors have also launched a big data on the active program, IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Dell these foreign large manufacturers and wave, Dawn, Chuzhi storage, All the domestic manufacturers such as Chi and Tatsu have launched a practical solution for large data market in this year.

When it comes to big data, we have a product that we can't talk about, which is that Hadoop,hadoop is the open source Kay of Big data and has a huge advantage in dealing with data with large data and different structures, and in the 2012, many mainstream manufacturers have built relationships with Hadoop, Intel has launched its own version of the Hadoop release.

2013, big data will continue to be hot, and manufacturers will also provide more suitable for the big data era of the solution.

2. Mixed cloud into user preferred cloud mode

In the 2012, cloud computing gradually began to fall, and was no longer as illusory as before, began to enter the enterprise, to provide users with genuine benefits. Cloud computing can now be divided into public, private and mixed clouds. According to foreign surveys, most corporate organizations are often not a set of cloud platforms, but rather a mixture of cloud platforms.

Many companies have been secretive about the security of the public cloud, and the limitations of the private cloud make the enterprise feel that there is no need to change. The emergence of a hybrid cloud solves this dilemma well, and companies can put important information in private clouds and share files that are not classified in the public cloud.

At present, although the key technology to support mixed cloud is still immature, its potential benefits have become the focus of enterprise. The benefits of a hybrid cloud are similar to that for public cloud storage deployments, greatly enhancing system flexibility and self-service servers. The security of private cloud and let the enterprise rest assured that the important information in the cloud platform, can be said to kill the birds.

This trend of combining private cloud and public cloud will gradually be adopted in 2013 as technology matures, after all, the advantages of integrating security, data integrity, reliability, and flexibility of the business are obvious, and in a huge competitive environment, the enterprise IT organization will only continue to improve the enterprise IT architecture, To meet the evolving needs.

This process of transition from "single cloud" to "composite cloud" brings new challenges to technicians in addition to integrated security, data integrity and reliability, and even business process rule management. Under the great pressure, the enterprise IT organization can only integrate one or more of its own service items, so as to adapt to the problems posed by composite cloud platform under the new situation. ”

3.NAS Networked storage is emerging

NAS Storage has long been a real concern, after all, NAS storage is in a very awkward position, the high-end market is not satisfied, and low-end market storage needs are low. But with the advent of the Big Data age, NAS storage has been booming again this year. With the increase of data and the demand for storage devices, NAS storage is rapidly rising due to its diverse functions and low input and high returns.

Today's NAS storage is more and more functional, many NAS storage not only have file sharing, image storage and other common functions, but also for the current market added cloud storage, duplicate deletion technology, automatic streamlining technology and other functions, to help users save a lot of money and space. Deploying and managing NAS storage devices is simple, and businesses do not need specialized training.

Today, we can see applications for NAS systems in healthcare, education, manufacturing, finance, and so on. Can reduce the total cost of the enterprise and accelerate the infrastructure deployment of small and medium-sized enterprises.

NAS systems have a significant advantage in total cost of ownership (TCO) (both in terms of procurement costs and maintenance costs), and our small and medium-sized enterprises occupy a very large proportion, and with the gradual improvement of copyright laws such as movies and music, NAS storage will prosper in 2013, which is also the 2012 IBM EMC, Dell and other well-known manufacturers to launch low-end storage equipment, the main reason.

4. Unified Storage Trends

NAS Storage and SAN storage have been completely disparate, with different areas of development, NAS storage primarily providing document storage servers, and SAN storage providing block storage, which seems to be irrelevant.

The entire two-form storage is for different areas, but if you want to use both, this time the concept of unified storage is answered.

Unified storage is actually a networked storage architecture that supports both file-based NAS storage and block based SAN storage. This multi-protocol system can be connected to the server via IP or Fibre Channel (FC). In a unified storage system, block access is achieved through interfaces such as Fibre Channel, SAS, or Ethernet based iSCSI, and file access refers to the use of Ethernet based CIFS or NFS to access the file system in the storage system.

In a unified storage environment, data storage becomes a shared pool of resources, storage blocks, or file data, configured according to application requirements. So it's not surprising that users are very interested in implementing a unified storage platform. Unified storage in fusion storage has a similar, 2013, unified storage will be more development.

5. Software-defined Storage

Now many manufacturers from high-end products to the middle end of the migration, mainly because the original low-end product software features are not very strong, there is no high-end features, these features are now gradually moved down, in fact, on behalf of you to the hardware storage of this piece more emphasis on the software aspects of some features.

Now in the data center has been proposed to the software output, in the network also has a software definition network concept inside, in storage is likely to be controlled by software, that is, software definition storage.

Continuous innovation in storage systems has created new layers of abstraction, from the initial operating system to today's virtualization. Each time it abstracts the underlying hardware and creates a new platform for competition and innovation at the top. However, in storage, the functional division of software and hardware is not so clear, the correct programmable platform becomes elusive, but with the improvement of software level, as well as the improvement of hardware products, a step-by-step trend shows that more and more network infrastructure will be defined by the software outside the data channel.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)