Optimism remains high in storage efficiency world despite recession and talks of possibly impending depression. The focus seems to be on doing more with less and optimizing on existing capacities.
Nick Broadbent, UK Managing Director of DataCore Software says: “Virtualisation and hence consolidation has transformed all that with IT managers able to meet the business data growth needs by re-utilising external storage solutions already in their network.”
Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst feels that there is a significant shift towards higher capacity models. He says, "While the overall market is maturing, growth is shifting towards higher capacity models… The 1.5TB+ segment is forecasted to see the highest growth, exceeding 100 per cent CAGR."
Data deduplication, 6 GB’s SAS, FCoe, Virtualization, automation, optimization and cost savings seems to be the mantra that is doing the rounds.
Deduplication is seen as a means of generating a quick return on investment and several vendors are pushing the technology this week.
Storage capacity optimization appliances for primary and backup storage also have generated a lot of interest.
Data reduction solutions from Hifn, backup acceleration options for virtual tape libraries, data reduction technology for cloud form Nirvanix and Ocarina are significant in this scenario. Virtualization and automation gained favor and disaster recovery advisor from Symantec was unveiled. NetApp has announced new storage and data management features for VMWare for virtual desktop environments. SAS attracted attention for its high performance, low cost solution, while ATTO announced FastStream SC 8200 controller and 3PAR unveiled its InSery F-Class Storage Servers. Data Robotics announced its DroboPro.
In this backdrop there the venture funding announcement from Lightspeed Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Dell ventures and Focus Ventures, Jerusalem Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Valhalla Partners and HarborVest Partners, further signals that the interest in the Storage sector has not died down. Fusion_IO received a whopping $47.5 million and Sepaton netted $15.5 million.
All this keeps optimism high and market watchers agree that while the Storage industry seems to be slowing down due to the recession the slow down is minimal and not very alarming. It is true that external disk storage system numbers are being affected by market conditions, but storage efficiency technologies are picking up. Sean Haffey, storage product manager at FSC, says that there is no doubt that the external disk market is slowing. “When things were booming 18 months ago it was a question of how fast you could go to market,” he said. “Now it is a case of how efficiently you can run.
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