Information Archives

May 31, 2014March 8, 2022

Is there an information or data recession? Are you using less storage? (With Polls)

StorageIO industry trends

Is there an information recession where you are creating, processing, moving or saving less data?

Are you using less data storage than in the past either locally online, offline or remote including via clouds?

IMHO there is no such thing as a data or information recession, granted storage is being used more effectively by some, while economic pressures or competition enables your budgets to be stretched further. Likewise people and data are living longer and getting larger.

In conversations with IT professionals particular the real customers (e.g. not vendors, VAR’s, analysts, blogalysts, consultants or media) I routinely hear from people that they continue to have the need to store more information, however they’re data storage usage and acquisition patterns are changing. For some this means using what they have more effectively leveraging data footprint reduction (DFR) which includes (archiving, compression, dedupe, thin provision, changing how and when data is protected). This also means using different types of storage from flash SSD to HDD to SSHD to tape summit resources as well as cloud in different ways spanning block, file and object storage local and remote.

A common question that comes up particular around vendor earnings announcement times is if the data storage industry is in decline with some vendors experience poor results?

Look beyond vendor revenue metrics

As a back ground reading, you might want to check out this post here (IT and storage economics 101, supply and demand) which candidly should be common sense.

If all you looked at were a vendors revenues or margin numbers as an indicator of how well such as the data storage industry (includes traditional, legacy as well as cloud) you would not be getting the picture.

What needs to be factored into the picture is how much storage is being shipped (from components such as drives to systems and appliances) as well as delivered by service providers.

Looking at storage systems vendors from a revenue earnings perspective you would get mixed indicators depending on who you include, not to mention on how those vendors report break of revenues by product, or amount units shipped. For example looking at public vendors EMC, HDS, HP, IBM, NetApp, Nimble and Oracle (among others) as well as the private ones (if you can see the data) such as Dell, Pure, Simplivity, Solidfire, Tintri results in different analysis. Some are doing better than others on revenues and margins, however try to get clarity on number of units or systems shipped (for actual revenue vs. loaners (planting seeds for future revenue or trials) or demos).

Then look at the service providers such as AWS, Centurlylink, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft Rackspace or Verizon (among others) you should see growth, however clarity about how much they are actually generating on revenues plus margin for storage specific vs. broad general buckets can be tricky.

Now look at the component suppliers such as Seagate and Western Digital (WD) for HDDs and SSHDs who also provide flash SSD drives and other technology. Also look at the other flash component suppliers such as Avago/LSI whose flash business is being bought by Seagate, FusionIO, SANdisk, Samsung, Micron and Intel among others (this does not include the systems vendors who OEM those or other products to build systems or appliances). These and other component suppliers can give another indicator as to the health of the industry both from revenue and margin, as well as footprint (e.g. how many devices are being shipped). For example the legacy and startup storage systems and appliance vendors may have soft or lower revenue numbers, however are they shipping the same or less product? Likewise the cloud or service providers may be showing more revenues and product being acquired however at what margin?

What this all means?

Growing amounts of information?

Look at revenue numbers in the proper context as well as in the bigger picture.

If the same number of component devices (e.g. processors, HDD, SSD, SSHD, memory, etc) are being shipped or more, that is an indicator of continued or increased demand. Likewise if there is more competition and options for IT organizations there will be price competition between vendors as well as service providers.

All of this means that while IT organizations budgets stay stretched, their available dollars or euros should be able to buy (or rent) them more storage space capacity.

Likewise using various data and storage management techniques including DFR, the available space capacity can be stretched further.

So this then begs the question of if the management of storage is important, why are we not hearing vendors talking about software defined storage management vs. chasing each other to out software define storage each other?

Ah, that’s for a different post ;).

So what say you?

Are you using less storage?

Do you have less data being created?

Are you using storage and your available budget more effectively?

Please take a few minutes and cast your vote (and see the results).

Sorry I have no Amex or Amazon gift cards or other things to offer you as a giveaway for participating as nobody is secretly sponsoring this poll or post, it’s simply sharing and conveying information for you and others to see and gain insight from.

Do you think that there is an information or data recession?

How about are you using or buying more storage, could there be a data storage recession?

Some more reading links

IT and storage economics 101, supply and demand
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
Is There a Data and I/O Activity Recession?
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Human Face of Big Data, a Book Review
Garbage data in, garbage information out, big data or big garbage?
Little data, big data and very big data (VBD) or big BS?

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

August 4, 2011November 26, 2023

Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer

Lets face it, people and information are living longer and thus there are more of each along with a strong interdependency by both.

People living and data being retained longer should not be a surprise, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. There is no such thing as an information recession with more data being generated, processed, moved and stored for longer periods of time not to mention that a data object is also getting larger.

Industry trend and performance

By data objects getting larger, think about a digital photo taken on a typical camera ten years ago which whose resolution was lower and thus its file size would have been measured in kilo bytes (thousands). Today megapixel resolutions are common from cell phones, smart phones, PDAs and even larger with more robust digital and high definition (HD) still and video cameras. This means that a photo of the same object that resulted in a file of hundreds of Kbytes ten years ago would be measured in Megabytes today. With three dimensional (3D) cameras appearing along with higher resolution, you do not need to be a rocket scientist or industry pundit to figure out what that growth trend trajectory looks like.

However it is not just the size of the data that is getting larger, there are also more instances along with copies of those files, photos, videos and other objects being created, stored and retained. Similar to data, there are more people now than ten years ago and some of those have also grown larger, or at least around the waistline. This means that more people are creating and relying on larger amounts of information being available or accessible when and where needed. As people grow older, the amount of data that they generate will naturally increase as will the information that they consume and rely upon.

Where things get interesting is that looking back in history, that is more than ten or even a hundred years, the trend is that there are more people, they are living longer, and they are generating larger amounts of data that is taking on new value or meaning. Heck you can even go back from hundreds to thousands of years and see early forms of data archiving and storage with drawings on walls of caves or other venues. I Wonder if had the cost (and ease of use) to store and keep data had been lower back than would there have been more information saved? Or was it a case of being too difficult to use the then state of art data and information storage medium combined with limited capacities so they simply ran out of storage and retention mediums (e.g. walls and ceilings)?

Lets come back to the current for a moment which is another trend of data that in the past would have been kept offline or best case near line due to cost and limits or constraints are finding their way online either in public or private venues (or clouds if you prefer).

Thus the trend of expanding data life cycles with some types of data being kept online or readily accessible as its value is discovered.

Here is an easy test, think of something that you may have googled or searched for a year or two ago that either could not be found or was very difficult to find. Now take that same search or topic query and see if anything appears and if it does, how many instances of it appear. Now make a note to do the same test again in a year or even six months and compare the results.

Now back to the future however with an eye to the past and things get even more interesting in that some researchers are saying that in centuries to come, we should expect to see more people not only living into their hundreds, however even longer. This follows the trend of the average life expectancy of people continues to increase over decades and centuries.

What if people start to live hundreds of years or even longer, what about the information they will generate and rely upon and its later life cycle or span?

Here is a link to a post where a researcher sees that very far down the road, people could live to be a thousand years old which brings up the question, what about all the data they generate and rely upon during their lifetime.

Ok, now back to the 21st century and it is safe to say that there will be more data and information to process, move, store and keep for longer periods of time in a cost effective way. This means applying data footprint reduction (DFR) such as archiving, backup and data protection modernization, compression, consolidation where possible, dedupe and data management including deletion where applicable along with other techniques and technologies combined with best practices.

Will you out live your data, or will your data survive you?

These are among other things to ponder while you enjoy your summer (northern hemisphere) vacation sitting on a beach or pool side enjoying a cool beverage perhaps gazing at the passing clouds reflecting on all things great and small.

Ok, nuff said for now.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

twitter @storageio

December 22, 2008November 26, 2023

Tiered Communication and Media Venues

Storage I/O trends

Someone recently ask me what have I been doing as they had not seen or heard anything from me in a longtime on the web which had me a bit puzzled. Then it dawned on me, perhaps the person was focused on reading or following just one of the many different venues that I’m involved with around the world ranging from print, to web to live-in person to social networking and perhaps a site that I have not been doing much with as of late. On the flip side, I hear from others about how much they see and hear, good bad or indifferent and of all the different venues I’m involved with wondering how its all done or possible and how big of an army do I have to support all the content and venues.

Well, that got me to thinking a bit about how people have various preferences for how they get or share information. Pondering all the different mediums available for disseminating, receiving and sharing information and discussion, do you have a preferred medium, perhaps vetted via a traditional publisher or publication or un-vetted via the rapid fire quick pace world of Twitter, IM, personal blogs and social networking?

Do Webs, Blogs, Twitter, IM, Email, Articles, Books, Conferences, Podcasts, Magazines and other communication mediums fall under the class of tiered media and communications? IMHO sure, to each their own or many preferences.

What do these have to do with servers, storage, I/O networks and associated data management technologies and techniques? Simple, they are all forms of communications and information exchange that different people have preferences for getting or sharing information, news and opinions.

Now what does any of this have to do with myself and StorageIO? Simple, I realize that people have their own preferences on how they get or share information and thus give and take part in different venues and using various mediums around the world. How is StorageIO using and participating in these various mediums and venues? Read-on and see some examples. So here’s my take and what I’m doing with StorageIO to take part with different people using several diverse forms or mediums.

For some, its via web sites such as the main StorageIO web site (www.storageio.com) where information is added with regards to news, events, books, tips and articles, white papers and reports, services and experience among other content material or information.

Some people prefer traditionally published, printed and vetted content such as "Resilient Storage Networks" (Elsevier) ISBN-10: 1555583113 or ISBN-13: 978-1555583118 or "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (Auerbach) ISBN-10: 1420086669 or ISBN-13: 978-1420086669 as well as digital versions of published books like those on Kindle.

Yet another venue are events such as conferences, seminars, custom events or other live in person meetings such as those found on the StorageIO events page.

Some people like reading blogs such as Gregs’ StorageIO Blog (www.storageioblog.com) which can also be accessed via the main StorageIO web site (www.storageio.com).

For other people, the preference is reading about information, industry trends and perspectives, quotes and interviews via traditional news sources, both IT industry related as well as market verticals such as those among others at the StorageIO in the News page.

Another preference is to get information via pod cast, web cast or videos including those found here, here, here, and here among others.

Then the new and emerging mediums including Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Plaxo, Technorati, and Linkedin, among others.

While the number of print based industry specific publications is on the decline, there are still some venues that print monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly venues of their pubs also digital versions to compliment web-based content such as searchstorage, enterprise storage forum and many others.

Did I answer the question of how StorageIO is using and participating in different venues? If not, check out those mentioned above to learn and see more. However in a nutshell, there is a mix of working with existing venues ranging from books, to articles in journals, tips and commentary in news and other venues. There are also industry trends and perspectives white papers and solution briefs, web casts, pod casts and videos. There are live in person participating at conferences, seminars and custom events as well as regular updates on the web site and blogsite. For those who are into real-time, even more so than a blog, then there are the social sites including twitter or networking sites including Linkedin among others not to mention RSS feeds.

Do you prefer to get news and information as it happens, or, perhaps even before it happens as the story is still un-folding, or, perhaps to wait and get the story with insight and perspectives along with the story behind the story?

Do you have a preferred venue and medium for getting and enhancing information, or perhaps some combination of the above or others including Instant Messaging such as AOL (storageio), or email (info at storageio dot com), RSS, POTS or Plain Old Telephone System or Skype or Snail mail among many others venues, tools or aggregators and so what is it?

Needless to say, there are plenty of changes and options for getting and giving information and the one thing we can count on being constant is change it self.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

Is there an information or data recession? Are you using less storage? (With Polls)

Look beyond vendor revenue metrics

What this all means?

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