In addition to the cloud frenzy, data reduction (including a focus on deduplication and think provisioning) will be the “strongest priority in enterprise storage” as organisations try to contain the data explosion, Oostveen said.
“For the last couple of years we’ve talked about driving efficiencies through the datacentre, through the enterprise, and we’ve had that conversation around servers.
"We talk about virtualisation, blades, consolidation of the server stack, but everyone ignores the elephant in the room – and that’s the storage.
"Storage is growing at an exponential rate. It will grow between 2010 and 2020 some 44 times. 2010 was a significant year because the digital universe grew to 1.2 zettabytes. That’s a stack of DVDs from here to the moon and back again. By 2020, that stack of DVDs will go halfway to Mars.”
Oostveen said the storage market will ramp up through 2011 as IT managers and CIOs become more aware they need to get their storage infrastructure under control.
“If you want to move towards a cloud, whether it’s private or public, you’ve got to push this pool of data up into an extra layer of resource – it’s quite frankly like a boa constrictor eating a pig. You need to minimise the amount of information that you’ve got so that you’re not paying so much for your WAN and communication costs.”
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Thomas Duryea CEO, Andrew Thomas, said systems management work around the desktop will be a big area of play.
“Looking forward, Windows 7 is on everyone’s radar. Desktop automation is now a much more mature conversation. It’s not just about replacing a desktop, but want to know what the new model is to access applications,” he said.
Dimension Data CTO, Gerard Florian, said there are “two big buckets” to watch for in 2011: infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and collaboration.
“With the notion of IaaS, you can take all the bits now and put the IT house in order. You don’t have to buy individual components,” Florian said.
Collaboration technologies – from IP telephony to visual and web conferencing to unified messaging and instant messaging – help enable organisations to share knowledge and collaborate better in a secure and managed way.
“Optimism has returned to the market and organisations are focusing on growth and productivity. They are looking to collaboration solutions to facilitate information sharing,” he said.
