Storage has become a complicated animal within the IT stack, and according to a recent Vanson Bourne survey commissioned by Red Hat, there’s growing evidence that ignoring the critical role storage plays across physical, virtual, container and both public and private cloud environments is a recipe for disaster.
According to a Red Hat blog written by Daniel Gilfix, product marketing for Red Hat storage, “today’s solutions require the agility to access data from anywhere, anytime, on any device, the flexibility to store data on-premises or in the cloud, and advanced data protection that provides integrity and high availability at very large scale.”
The key message is that traditional storage strategies are no longer sufficient. Red Hat is one of many vendors touting the benefits of software-defined storage, particularly as it pertains to addressing the rapidly growing volumes of data enterprises are forced to manage.
Gilfix noted that inadequate storage infrastructure is now fourth on the list of top pain points for IT decision-makers. Of the 500 IT decision-makers surveyed for the “Storage: Limitations, Frustrations, and Coping with Future Needs” report, 94 per cent indicated they’re frustrated with their existing storage infrastructure. To make matters worse, 70 per cent said they don’t believe their current storage solutions are capable of handling next-generation workloads.
Enterprise storage volumes continue to increase at a fast rate. Of the survey respondents, 54 per cent said they expect their organizations’ volume of data to increase by 54 per cent over the next three to five years. Almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of respondents don’t believe they have the ability to cope with that data volume increase.
“Clearly most organizations are not prepared to cope with large workloads, and without this preparedness, their ability to roll out new applications and IT solutions may effectively be in jeopardy,” Gilfix wrote.
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For many organizations, storage is a weekly pain point that comes with several challenges, including budget constraints (cited by 42 per cent of respondents), legacy systems (37 per cent) and the inability to store and easily access different types of data (35 per cent).
The report indicated organizations will need to act fast to change their storage strategies if they wish to have a fit-for-purpose storage solution that meets future data storage and accessibility needs.
The need for more agile storage is clear. Almost all of the survey respondents (98 per cent) said they’re optimistic about the tangible benefits of moving to more agile storage solutions.
“Without discussing what, beyond budgetary constraints, might be impeding procurement for these IT decision makers, it’s clear that more agile storage could alleviate most frustrations with their current storage solution and deliver invaluable benefits to their infrastructure and solutions dependent upon storage at their core,” Gilfix concluded.