8 Emerging Data Storage Trends To Watch In 2022

The pandemic-related labor shortages, supply chain issues and price increases are important issues for data storage in 2022, but the biggest impact will come from an increased focus on software and the cloud.

Software, AI, Cloud Combine To Bring Value To Data

The growth of the value of the data storage industry at least for now continues to scale to new heights. Research firm IDC in January estimated the worldwide enterprise storage system external OEM market rose 6.1 percent in 2021 over 2020 to $31.1 billion and will rise another 7.6 percent in 2022 to $33.5 billion, with annual growth tapering off in the following three years.

While that statistic is interesting as a proxy for data storage system growth, it doesn’t begin to reflect what is happening above the hardware part of storage. Instead, to understand what is really happening in storage, it is important to look beyond increasingly commoditized hardware to the software that defines storage, the cloud that can either complement or replace on-premises storage, and the efficiencies that come from a mix of artificial intelligence and better management tools.

CRN is taking a look at what to expect from the data storage industry as 2022 unfolds.

And, by the way, take a look at CRN’s data storage predictions for 2021, which were published a year ago this month, and see whether we got it right or missed the key points.

The Market Finally Gets It: It’s The Software

It is still common to think of storage as hardware. There’s no mystery why. Customers can see and feel the arrays, controllers, SSDs and hard drives they purchase. However, behind every storage device is what really defines its purpose: software. The functions of storage devices--and the differentiation between vendors--come from the software that is run on them.

2022 could be a watershed year for business users realizing the value of software versus hardware in storage. They are increasingly seeing data stored in the cloud and in other off-premises locations away from their traditional storage infrastructures, and in turn realizing the power of software. That, in turn, should lead to increased adoption of software-defined storage as well as software-based storage appliances that can be run on-premises or in public or hybrid clouds to manage the same data in the same way wherever it is stored.

Software Engineers In High Demand

Staff shortages of all kinds have made life difficult for manufacturers in all fields, including the storage industry. For storage vendors, the biggest shortage now and for all of 2022 will be software engineers as they increasingly rely on software to differentiate their offerings in the market, with less emphasis on the hardware side. Rising salaries for software engineers will make it difficult for vendors to drop the cost of storage over time.

For the channel, it’s the same. Solution providers need engineering talent to design solutions for customers, ensure those solutions are deployed properly and offer support. And as software continues to be more and more at the center of storage solutions, solution providers, who are often being encouraged by vendors to take a more proactive role in high-margin services, could be competing for engineering talent from those very same vendors.

This is a situation for which there is no short-term solution. Everyone in the storage industry will have to find ways to attract and keep good talent, or they will find 2022 a very tough year.

Living On The Edge

The edge, particularly with the adoption of IoT, has become a key part of the storage infrastructure as increasing amounts of data are captured by devices that can be mounted anywhere, with that data then typically sent to a centralized location for processing into valuable information that can be used for analysis or making decisions. However, sending huge amounts of data in tiny slices can result in bandwidth issues or problems with assembling it into useful data.

2022 will see more data increasingly remaining at the edge as compute capabilities will migrate toward the data rather than vice versa. A lot of the data collected is ephemeral in nature: recorded, prepped for analysis and discarded in real time as it is of no further value. Given bandwidth constraints, it makes more sense in many cases to process the data where it is collected and just send the results.

Ransomware Technology Will Be A Key Storage Feature

The line between storage and security is starting to get a bit hazy as several storage vendors have started building anti-ransomware technology into their offerings. Expect anti-ransomware technology to become a prominent must-have feature in 2022 and beyond.

There are several ways to do this, including the creation of an immutable copy of data that cannot be modified or deleted, and air-gapping by creating a physical block to back up data that can only be removed by a human.

AI will play a big role in protecting data against ransomware as it can be used to scan for known and unknown attack vectors in real time. AI can also learn as it works to be prepared for new types of attacks as yet undiscovered.

Storage vendors have already taken the first steps in making ransomware detection and prevention a part of their products. In 2022, expect this to be a basic requirement from any vendor as businesses realize they may be next in line for an attack.

AI And Machine Learning, Front And Center

The shortage of skilled personnel combined with growing amounts of data will push businesses in 2022 to look for areas where they can automate storage and data management processes.

The storage industry has over the past several years started taking advantage of AI and machine learning to monitor storage-focused operations and provide alerts when issues are found, which is a great start. However, there has been resistance to actually taking automated actions based on those alerts. Expect storage systems to increasingly take proactive, automated actions in 2022 and beyond as businesses look for alternatives to hiring more humans to handle issues.

Automation in storage systems will also increasingly be used for more mundane tasks such as ingesting, organizing, provisioning and managing data, a move that will allow the human administrators to focus on more company mission-critical tasks.

The Cost Of Storage

The cost of storage depends on many factors. Part of the cost is on the hardware side, where the prices of nearly everything from memory to the steel that is bent into cases has risen due to supply chain issues. Expect some, but not much, relief on the hardware side of storage pricing as the costs come down a little bit in 2022.

Another big factor is the cost of developing the software that runs storage. Here, there will be no relief. The biggest part of the cost here is salaries, which for storage software engineers is on the rise and will only grow into 2022 as part of a general trend toward higher salaries.

As a result, logically, it follows that the cost of storage will rise, right?

But storage pricing has a couple of other factors to consider. For instance, that software mentioned above? A big part of the investment in that software is focused on improving storage efficiency, which when done right means a falling cost on a per-TB basis. And don’t forget the cloud. Cloud storage on a per-TB basis still remains higher than for local storage, and will continue to do so. But cloud storage costs will continue to fall while better management (see software above and automation) will allow storage systems to use the cloud for the right use cases.

One more factor to consider: Storage is not really known for its pricing elasticity. Demand for new ways to store and manage data is high as the amount of data increases, meaning customers will need to purchase more capacity regardless of the price.

Legacy Storage Vendors Finally Get The Cloud

NetApp has for several years been at the forefront of tying on-premises and cloud-based storage into a seamless infrastructure where data can be managed with the same tools regardless of where it resides, and has of late also started moving to tying storage to other parts of the cloud experience, including compute with its Spot acquisition and virtual desktops with its CloudJumper acquisition.

Pure Storage followed, and has also completely embraced the idea of seamlessly managing storage across on-premises and the cloud.

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise in May introduced its Data Services Cloud Console subscription service with new all-NVMe Alletra systems to up its ante in the cloud storage business, and Dell Technologies in early 2022 unveiled Project Alpine, which is slated to bring its block and file storage software to major cloud providers. However, they, like so many of their peers, are still heavily dependent on sales of their own storage hardware even as the rush to the cloud continues.

Watch in 2022 as HPE and Dell and everyone else emphasize the cloud in equal terms as their own storage hardware and software.

5G Will Simplify, Complicate Data

With the rollout of 5G networks expected to happen in 2022, the impact on the storage industry could go a couple of ways.

With 5G networks, wireless bandwidth will increase significantly compared with legacy networks. That will make it easier to move increased amounts of data at higher speeds, which will mean easier backup and recovery, faster access, quicker movement of large data sets for analysis and so on, particularly between on-premises infrastructures, clouds, and the edge.

But there will be a throttle to all that new performance. Think of a major highway that is crowded during rush hour, leading to calls for more traffic lanes to ease congestion. What happens when those lanes open? A brief respite before more commuters take to the highway, leading back to the congestion issue.

5G networks might eventually take some of the bandwidth pressures away. However, with the expected increase in data stored, processed, migrated and managed by businesses and consumers, that extra bandwidth could be swallowed up, leaving users back at square one.