New survey findings validate object storage growth. Analyst firm IHS Markit today released results from a survey of IT professionals showing strong uptake for object storage in data-intensive applications.
Findings from this IHS Markit survey include:
- 56% of survey respondents indicated that they plan to increase investment in object storage
- Expect total storage capacity to grow by 33% YoY
- On-premises storage capacity expanding by 24% YoY
- Current storage capacity is 35% object, 38% file and 27% block
- Much of this data will be used in data-intensive workloads, including databases, data analytics and AI
- Object is becoming the preferred organizational approach for big-data repositories and video distribution
Object Storage is “Top Priority”
The survey validates the expanding market position of object storage:
A total of 56% of survey respondents indicated that they plan to increase investment in object storage. Object storage was followed by unified storage at 51%, SAN) at 48% and NAS at 36%. The strong showing for object storage indicates on-premises enterprise customers are now getting onboard with the technology, despite its slow initial takeoff.
“As enterprises increase their collection of IoT data, object storage has emerged as the perfect repository for aggregating all this information, allowing ubiquitous access and easy scaling to larger sized data sets,” said Dennis Hahn, principal analyst, IHS Markit. “Beyond better scalability and access from any location, object storage offers lower-cost storage management and improved cross-geography data protection.“
Solution for Large-Scale Data Growth
It also validates the necessity for object storage in managing data growth:
Object storage positions enterprises to handle the massive expansion of data now facing many organizations. Much of this data will be used in data-intensive workloads, including databases, data analytics and AI. With security a major concern, enterprises often hold this information in object storage solutions in their own data centers. The interest in object-storage investment provides ample evidence that this emerging storage type will be a key technology that will change the data-center storage landscape.
In the same survey, respondents said they expect their storage capacity to grow by 33% over an approximately one-year timeframe. The need to store and process larger data sets is an important driver behind capacity growth as well as many new storage equipment purchases. Both on-and-off premises data capacity is expected to grow, with on-premises storage capacity expanding by 24% and off-premises rising by 45% between 2018 and 2019.
Hybrid Cloud Growth
A combination of on-prem and cloud solutions is becoming the growth path:
Significantly, respondents said storage is not an either-or choice between on-premises and cloud solutions. Rather, respondents said their IT organizations are expanding in both areas.
Looking at how much storage respondents have both on and off premises as a percentage of total storage, it is currently split at 35% for object, 38% for file and 27% for block.
Cloud service providers (CSPs) are leading the shift to object. For instance, Amazon Web Services is offering its S3 object-based storage solution. Object is also becoming the preferred organizational approach for big-data repositories and video distribution, and the technology represents basis for on- and off-premises data exchange. The shift toward block is consistent with recent storage trends; new applications such as AI, ML and large databases need the high performance that block organization provides.
Storage for capacity intensive applications
The survey points to the need for simple, scalable, easily deployed object storage solutions to meet the need for large-capacity growth. Learn more at cloudian.com.
