2009 Predictions Results

In January, Permabit predicted 2009 would be the year when businesses would stop treating the symptoms of storage problems and instead addressed the cause of its data storage problems.  We boldly predicted the industry was in store for some fundamental changes that would dramatically impact how storage was acquired and utilized.  Twelve months later, check out how we did.

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Permabit’s 5 Storage Predictions for 2009:

Prediction #1: Primary Storage Values will Fall — Dramatically

Businesses Downgrade Valuation of Primary Storage.  A glut of primary storage assets exist and in 2009 companies will begin making a point of moving non–essential data off of primary storage devices to lower tier alternatives. Squeezed by higher performing Tier 0 solutions from above and cost effective, deduped Tier 2/3 archiving solutions from below, the rapid devaluation of primary storage will cause businesses to demand steep discounts from primary storage vendors for old-style solutions or to simply avoid expanding them altogether.

>> Reality: Primary storage was greatly devalued in 2009. Vendors dramatically dropped prices on high–priced Tier 1 storage in an attempt to maintain account control and associated revenue.  Emerging storage vendors countered with space optimization technologies, such as data deduplication, and gained market share as customers looked for smarter ways to store more data in a smaller footprint at a more cost–effective price point.

>> Save millions on primary storage with Permabit.

Permabit provides the industry’s most cost–effective, scalable, and reliable method of storing information long term using disk as an archive.  The Permabit Enterprise Archive™ allows static or inactive data to be migrated from the most expensive tier of storage to the most cost effective tier.  By doing so, valuable space is reclaimed within the primary storage negating the need to invest in more primary storage in the near and potentially mid to long term.  Reducing the primary storage to just the active data also has a dramatic positive impact on backup windows and resources.

Prediction #2: The Truth about Deduplication will be Revealed

Data deduplication will remain hot, just not for backup.  Businesses will feel the pain of the deduplication “threshold” where dedicated hardware appliances and virtual tape libraries (VTLs) will fill up, requiring additional purchases of expensive hardware or forklift upgrades. The impetus for dedupe will evolve as deduplication for backup hits this wall.  Users will realize that dedupe for backup isn’t solving the bigger problem of continually backing up mountains of primary storage–based static information, as it just addresses a lesser symptom of the need to reduce the amount of space redundant backups consume.

>> Reality: Dedupe vendors who focused on backup continue to battle scalability limitations. Even their “higher capacity” models are limited in scalability. Their first generation architectures simply cannot scale to meet the demands of large scale enterprises. Dedupe 2.0 addresses this problem by making dedupe ubiquitous and providing massive scalability that is necessary for today’s increasingly larger data stores. 

>> Permabit solves the root problem so dedupe actually works.

The Permabit’s Dedupe 2.0 technology combines patented in–line deduplication with compression within the disk–based archive to dramatically reduce the amount of disk capacity needed, as well as power requirements to store, static information needed for long term archiving. By removing the static data completely out of the backup stream, the result dramatically improves backup window times and reduces resource consumption.  Treat the problem rather than addressing the symptom.

Prediction #3: RAID will Hit a Data Dead End

RAID Nears Retirement.  As multi–tiered storage continues to evolve, SANs will become more complex, unified networks will emerge, and as newer and larger drive technologies such as 1 TB drives take root, RAID as a data protection technology will become irrelevant. Advanced data protection schemes based on Erasure Coding technology for long term reliable data storage will take hold putting additional pressure on legacy solutions depending on RAID.

Reality: We are ahead of the curve here. 1TB and 2TB drives were introduced in 2009.  Larger capacity drives continue to make RAID obsolete as an effective data protection technology.  Increasing recovery times and bit errors on rebuild using RAID technologies have prompted many industry analysts to call for new data protection approaches that can scale and deliver the protection needed for today and into the future.

>> Permabit’s patented RAIN EC technology scales to cover all of your data.

The Permabit RAIN–EC grid storage architecture is a patented technology that provides next generation data protection needed for today’s large capacity drives.  By leveraging erasure coding algorithms and distributing data intelligently across storage nodes, the Permabit Enterprise Archive Data Center Series product can survive multiple simultaneous hardware failures.  Whether they are bit errors, total drive failures, processors, memory or entire storage nodes, Permabit is built to protect your data for the long term.  RAIN–EC also provides a much faster rebuild time, even compared to RAID 6 (or DP), due to the distributed nature of the data. Replication can be used for offsite disaster recovery protection and is WAN optimized by leveraging the Scalable Data Reduction technology.

Prediction #4: Regulations will Overwhelm Storage

Regulatory pressures will be magnified.  Regulations will continue to increase and emerge as a result of the fallout from the Wall Street crisis and pressures from the new administration to hold more data for longer periods of time. Government actions will put new demands on IT requiring organizations across industries to keep information online and readily accessible which will in turn accelerate storage growth.

>> Permabit lets you archive all data that allows full access and protection.

The Permabit Enterprise Archive is the most flexible, cost–effective, reliable, and scalable disk solution purpose built for archiving.  Whether it is archiving for storage management purposes or for compliance purposes, one system can be configured to handle either or both scenarios.  What is most daunting about new regulations is not knowing what they will be and what impact it will have on your existing investment in storage.  The Permabit Enterprise Archive is a virtual pool of storage that allows volumes to be created as Read/Write and/or Write Once Read Many (WORM).  If WORM is not a requirement today, but may be in the future, no sweat.  Just create the volumes as Read/Write today and it can always be converted to a WORM volume at any point in the future.  Stop debating what type of storage is needed.  The Permabit Enterprise Archive can cover you in all scenarios.

Prediction #5: The Buck Stops Here

Cost becomes the driving issue.  IT will look beyond the traditional, high–cost storage vendors.  Smart companies will put a premium on, and may limit their purchases to, flexible, innovative, and easy–to–deploy solutions that deliver immediate cost–savings. All while delivering advanced features for deduplication, self–healing, thin–provisioning, encryption and Write Once Read Many (WORM) that can handle massive data pools.

>> Permabit lets drive IT storage costs down, while improving access and security.

The Permabit Enterprise Archive is a next generation storage solution purpose built for extremely cost–effective data archiving.  By leveraging commodity storage and server components and an open architecture the Permabit disk–based archive can be used for Tier 2/3, Utility, Value, Archive, Content Storage (or whatever the tier of storage in your company is defined as) housing static information that must be kept for long periods of time for legal and/or regulatory compliance purposes.  All while delivering advanced features for deduplication, self–healing, thin–provisioning, encryption and Write Once Read Many (WORM) that can handle massive data pools.

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What are your 2010 storage predictions?

What does 2010 hold in store for data retention and protection? Make a prediction and you may win a Flip Video Camera.

>> Click here to participate.

Contact Permabit Today

To find out how Permabit can help meet your increasing data retention needs while saving budget dollars, contact us today at: info@ permabit.com or by calling 617-252-9600.