As global IT infrastructure becomes more advanced, organisations are adopting big data analytics, mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices for collecting consumer information that needs to be stored for future use. Consequently, now, it is imperative for organisations to manage a huge influx of data that is demanding a revamp of storage infrastructure. Companies are laying greater emphasis on external storage devices to optimise the primary storage capacity and are investing in cloud-based and software-defined storage (SDS) to reduce the risk of data loss and downtime if any one of the services fails. When it comes to SDS, IoT plays an important role owing to the rapid increase in the number of connected devices, while IoT analytics improves the data handling efficiency and provides comprehensive insight into customer-management relations.
The ever-increasing volume of data has also necessitated enterprises to invest in flash storages as they can expand data storage utilisation and optimise data management. Flash storages enable users to build new technologies like integrated data protection, storage automation, policy-based provisioning, and public cloud integration top of it. Similarly, businesses are leaning towards hyper-converged infrastructures (HCI) for improved flexibility and convenience for data storage. Additionally, enterprises are engaging with automated storage tiering (AST) to transfer information dynamically between different disk types and RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) levels to improve their performance, data availability, and management.
Simultaneously, emerging innovations like NVMe further maximise the benefits of flash-based storage. Looking ahead, the industry is anticipating NVMe-based solid-state implementations, with the expectation that these new storage offerings will overtake not only the more traditional solid-state storage devices but possibly even, the larger storage networks also. With prices expected to come down steadily, it may soon be on cost parity with a spinning disk. The combination of declining prices and increasing value of high-performance workloads such as AI and analytics are driving the rapid adoption of flash-based solutions. NVMe will also expand within the storage industry as a high-performance protocol in storage systems, servers, and storage area network fabrics. Protocol improvements with NVMe will drive consolidation by helping support more applications, workloads, and use cases across IT infrastructure. In addition to on-premise data storage solutions, hybrid and cloud data storage solutions are gaining rapid prominence. The latest technologies allow the transparent movement of data between both on and off-premises solutions giving organisations greater control and agility. However, the true essence of ‘cloud readiness’ of storage is about aligning the right storage to the right job, irrespective of how companies are deploying their cloud environment.
To help companies navigate through the best-breed storage solutions providers, CIO Applications Europe has compiled this edition on leading storage solutions providers. A distinguished panel comprised of CIOs, VCs, and industry analysts, along with CIO Applications Europe’s editorial team have evaluated and shortlisted organisations that have significantly stood out as some of the most prominent players in the storage solutions arena for the year 2019. The firms featured in this issue through their business knowledge and industry prowess have established their eminence in the storage solution sector.
We present to you CIO Applications Europe’s “Top 10 Storage Solution Providers – 2019.”
