Merger Mania
We've
had a $13 bn merger between Symantec and Veritas. McData just gobbled up CNT,
and EMC's acquisitions will soon surpass the number of McDonalds franchises in
North America. Look for more mergers in 2005. Lots more, and lots of big ones
too.
Virtue in
Virtualization?
While
virtualization has been a buzz word for years, the signs are that some vendors
are getting closer. Though the actuality is unlikely to match the hype, major
players like EMC, IBM and Hitachi are working hard on virtualization
technology. In addition, upstarts like Katana (or VirtuOS Computing as it plans
to rename itself) are keeping very hush-hush about virtual multiprocessor
technology using inexpensive PCs.
Gateway to
Heaven?
NAS
gateways represented a major market shift in 2004. And they will continue to
this year. EMC gained significant market share last year due to its support of
NAS gateway initiatives. It offers Celerra running in front of Symmetrix as a
NAS gateway option, while NetApp offers a gateway to HDS and HP systems.
Newcomers like OnStor and Acopie also offer interesting NAS gateway products.
Less Fuzzy
iSCSI
The
battle between Fibre Channel and iSCSI is on! iSCSI not only has low cost on
its side. It is also catching up fast in terms of performance. Expect iSCSI to
carve a larger slice of the pie and FC vendors to strike back with slashed
costs. Either way, users win.
Comply or
Die
With
some deadlines past and others looming, compliance is high on the storage
agenda for 2005. Enterprise Strategy Group predicts that the total volume of
compliant records worldwide will increase from 376 petabytes in 2003 to 1,644
petabytes by 2006.
ILM Hype
Faster
than a speeding disk drive; more powerful than a POWER5 processor; able to leap
tall Symmetrix boxes in a single bound. Is it a bird, is it a plane, no-it's
I—L—M! Information Lifecycle Management. Like it or loathe it, no vendor can
afford to ignore ILM. Unlike 2004, actual products may even arrive on the
market showing early-day ILM features.
Switching
the Switches
4-Gbps
switching has arrived. Brocade and HP are first to market. IBM isn't far
behind. By the end of the year, every storage and r switch vendor will be
delivering 4-Gbps gear.
Tiny Disk Drive
We've had 3.5-inch drives for a while now, so its time for a change.
Look for 2.5-inch drives tobecome more available in rack-mounted and
server-blade systems.
Long Live
the Tape
Yes.
They've been saying it for years. Tape is finally dead. And what takes over? A
better kind of tape. LTO3 tape systems from the likes of HP, IBM and Quantum
can now be purchased, thereby doubling the capacity of tape to 400 GB
uncompressed, and increasing the data transfer rate to 80 MBps.
Power to the
User
While
2004 was the year that the ASNP boosted its membership numbers, 2005 will see
the return of user power in an industry that sorely needs it. Look for many
exciting programs to emerge this year that will give you more say on how
vendors produce products.
Source : Robb Dennis, Association of Storage Networking
Professionals
Dataquest