Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) is predicting a bumper year for its channel in 2007, as the hunger for sufficient storage continues to grow in the UK and global business communities.
The vendor has devised a list of 11 of the hottest issues facing the storage industry over the next 12 months.
According to HDS, more business continuity plans will be put in place this year as fears over loss of vital data, time and revenue grow. Regulation and compliance issues will also create huge amounts of additional data that needs to be stored, and the climate of economic uncertainty will continue, although the vendor has claimed firms should still have the capacity to expand if necessary. In addition the level of mergers and acquisitions in 2007 will continue to be high, HDS has predicted.
In terms of technology, HDS has claimed that the real boom areas will be green computing, virtualisation and deduplication technology. Security continues to be a vital area and the advent of Web 2.0 will create a data explosion, according to HDS.
The vendor believes that Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) will become redundant because it works on the concept that information loses value as it gets older, but in fact with compliance demands, data will need to be accessed quickly and easily, regardless of age.
HDS also claimed that IP storage will become a popular support for NAS, claiming that as the complexity of storage needs increases, so will the demand for methods to simplify data management.
Andrew Wilson, UK sales director at HDS, said: “Our strategy of delivering business-enabling high-end functionality – typically reserved for large enterprises to broader mid-sized customers – is significantly expanding our addressable market, enabling market share gains and also providing more choice and revenue opportunities to our channel partners.”
Alex Tatham, vice-president of global software distribution at distributor Bell Micro, agreed with HDS’ predictions.
“I would say that on the whole this list is correct,” he said. “The really interesting one is the redundancy of ILM – it is certainly heading that way, but it might not be next year. We are selling more storage than ever before and there is little doubt that data will continue to explode this year and drive demand for storage.”
Tatham added that a key area for Bell Micro next year will be email archiving, particularly with the mushrooming demand for compliance.
“However, overall we are very confident and feel that storage will continue to be really important to businesses in 2007,” he said.
