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April 24, 2017

Big Data Begets Big Storage

(robuart/Shutterstock)

The healthcare sector along with the explosion of connected devices are driving the big data storage market, according to a new survey of the global storage market that pegs annual growth over the next decade at more than 20 percent.

The storage surge also is prompting more vendors to integrate predictive analytics with software-based storage options while moving storage closer to end user data to reduce latency, concludes a market survey released by Persistence Market Research.

Overall, the survey forecasts that the global big data storage market will reach $61.44 billion by 2026.

While hardware-based storage currently accounts for nearly half of capacity, software-based storage is expected to expand over the next decade to more than $11 billion. The survey warns “the hefty overall cost of acquiring flash storage” is among the macroeconomic factors that could slow the growth of hardware-based storage.

Nevertheless, the steady shift toward digitizing healthcare records along with new data governance rules requiring digital backup of records are seen driving the storage market despite declining enterprise budgets for storage infrastructure. Those constraints could make more flexible cloud storage options more appealing to enterprises struggling to cope with soaring data volumes.

Indeed, the survey notes that leading storage vendors are offering flexible hybrid storage options while attempting to integrated cloud and flash technology into storage platforms. For example, VMware recently unveiled the latest version of its virtual storage platform that incorporates 3-D Xpoint memory technology from Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC).

As with many storage vendors, VMware (NYSE: VMW) also is adding cloud analytics capabilities that leverage flash memory performance. New data service algorithms are said to accelerate flash performance for cloud native and other applications. The data service adds support for workloads such as Hadoop and Splunk, among others.

Even as cloud storage vendors such as Amazon Web Services (NASDAQ: AMZN) are integrating FPGAs and other storage technologies, they also must offer backward compatibility to legacy on-premise storage systems that represent substantial data storage investments for many enterprises.

At the same time, much of the drive to incorporate analytics into cloud-based storage and computing is coming from market leaders such as AWS, which announced last week that it was now offering an “accelerator” for data analytics and machine learning based on its release of FPGA-equipped cloud instances.

While healthcare is fueling the growth of big data storage the market survey forecasts that the financial services sector will account for $16.49 billion of the global storage market by 2026, growing at an annual rate of more than 23 percent.

The hardware segment is projected to remain the most attractive storage market through 2026. However, the cloud storage “services” segment is expected to emerge over the next decade, the survey found.

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