Storage shifts in the future

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One of the areas where I’ve been getting quite a bit of interest when talking with CIOs is storage solutions. Right now the storage market seem to be fairly hot with quite a number of new players entering the market. These high performance systems are going to require new types of storage controllers, since the existing supporting interface hardware are designed for relatively low spinning disk performance.

With Memristor-based  or similar static storage coming on the scene in the foreseeable future, we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg of the disruption that will be taking place over the coming few years. The information technology impact on power consumption, floor space and volume storage of information that can be accessed at high-speed can’t be overestimated.

Their capabilities can also impact how applications and system interfaces are written, since conventional spinning disk implementations try everything they can to avoid moving the heads within the disk drive, since these are physical movements that perform at a glacial speed compared to the rest of the computing environment. In static memory devices, random I/O has minimal impact. They can access all their information at approximately the same speed, regardless of where it is. The whole concept of tiered storage is brought into question. Static memory devices also consume no power when they are not being accessed.

For businesses who are just starting to get a handle on 'big data' and the big storage that will be required, now is the time to start looking to the future and think about how the business value generation will shift with an order of magnitude more performance and storage capability – and I haven’t even mentioned the impact of storage in the cloud. Effort can be expended now to prepare.