The growing adoption of hybrid IT and edge computing has shaped the storage requirements of enterprises. While storage could be centralised at an on-premise datacentre in the past, a decentralised storage infrastructure is now the norm.

Indeed, storage technologies are evolving to keep pace with the growing volume of data created not only within the datacentre, but also at the edge. Coupled with the confluence of storage and other technologies such as artificial intelligence and data analytics, there is an even more pressing need to balance this technology explosion with physics.

Against this backdrop, efficiency has become the order of the day. Kashish Karnick, senior product manager for storage at Lenovo’s datacentre group in Asia-Pacific, says that while storage suppliers are looking at new hardware, fresh scrutiny and emphasis are being placed on efficiency.

That’s where software to manage, move and compress data comes in. “Storage vendors are accelerating their design, engineering and innovation primarily around data management platforms,” says Rajnish Arora, vice-president for enterprise computing at IDC Asia-Pacific.

“Vendors are focusing on building out the software-defined storage stack that delivers data services to power workloads running not only in virtual machines, but also in containers, with greater agility, flexibility and resilience required in the digital era. 

“There is strong emphasis on building autonomous operations that supports seamless data mobility in a hybrid cloud environment, which also includes infrastructure deployed at edge locations.”

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