Raman Yeung, Managing Director, Asia Pacific Channel Business, HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) talks to KTP Radhika on trends that drive storage market and storage scenario in India
New technologies like big data, mobility, etc., are being adopted by the enterprise world in large scale. So what kind of impact it’s having on the storage sector?
Enterprises are rethinking their datacenter infrastructures as the world is experiencing a shift in traditional compute platforms. Content and data volumes continue to grow, while advances in cloud computing, mobile computing, virtualization and thin provisioning are driving the need for true tiered storage in the datacenter.
In addition to new computing infrastructures and applications, economical and operational pressures in the datacenter are driving the need for reduced total cost of ownership (TCO). From reducing space, power and cooling to leveraging next-generation technologies, every datacenter is pushing the boundaries to make storage more efficient.
The pervasiveness of social networks, mobile applications, online video, mobile devices and the subsequent exabyte growth has driven innovation in server, storage and datacenter design in both traditional and cloud systems. Equipment runs hotter, datacenters are larger and in some cases have become modular. Datacenter locations are based more on power cost than land and staffing.
What are the storage strategies that should be adopted to tap the new opportunities?
Over the next several years, the fabric of cloud, mobility and internet will undergo significant challenges as over 4 billion people and billions of connected devices start sharing, streaming and moving data. These connected devices will expand beyond familiar smartphones, tablets and PCs to include a proliferation of smart devices and sensors, driving the annual global IP traffic to over a zettabyte.
With all of these people and businesses generating and consuming data on a variety of mobile devices, cloud storage is poised for significant growth. In order to handle such data growth and escalating Input/Output (I/O) requirements, many cloud datacenters are turning on a tiered storage approach using solid state drives (SSDs) where high Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) are needed, using high-capacity SATA and SAS HDDs where $/TB and density solves TCO problems.
Cloud is a popular trend in many other fields like software, infrastructure, etc. What is the cloud scenario with storage?
Cloud is a growing opportunity for data storage with new customers, new TCO requirements and new opportunities. It痴 a challenging environment in many respects but the pervasiveness of social networks, mobile applications, on-line video and mobile devices enables differentiation and growth for cloud storage.
The scale of cloud and internet is making many enterprises rethink their datacenter infrastructures. New products and services in the cloud are fueling growth for faster storage solutions and improvement in throughput and I/O performance, so that data can be delivered to consumers effectively without latency.
Traditional datacenters are facing decision making problems about their cloud strategy at the same time continued rise in cost to maintain datacenters is also a dilemma. These costs go beyond equipment acquisition and include things like power, cooling, storage density, footprint and staffing. Cloud datacenters are driven to optimize availability and cost. TCO has become a critical discussion now.
How do you see HGST’s business growth in Indian market and what are your future plans? Can you share name of customers in India?
We see continued growth in the storage market as consumers and businesses are making storage a strategic investment priority. HGST’s customers include traditional global server and storage OEMs, big data and cloud giants in internet search, social networking/media, online retail and banking.
What are the challenges with cloud based storage?
There are many challenges some apply for any enterprise datacenter while some are driven either by the scale or cloud datacenters, their business models or their applications. In our work with the cloud ecosystem, we have heard several consistent messages like TCO reduction, lowering power usage and improved efficiency, enhanced performance of specific applications or data types, improved storage scaling, active archiving, etc.
