Hot Topics for 2007

Yes, it's that time of year again.

All of us who fancy ourselves as industry watchers feel compelled -- almost ritually -- to lay out their views about the coming year.  I just can't resist.

None of these are radical thoughts, just my personal views of what's going to be popular, and what's not. 

I'll probably get a few right, get a few wrong, and totally miss a few others.   We'll see ...

First Half 2007

I think we'll see many of the newer concepts that have been talked about in 2006 actually land on customer floors in 1H'07.  Here's my guess on what will be the hot evaluation projects:

• WAAS -- Wide Area Application Services -- this technology tries to help customers get a handle on remote offices that might have a file server or two by consolidating applications, data and information management at a central site. 
  
  EMC has partnered with Cisco in this arena.  Their WAAS product not only provides accelerated file services, but also does application acceleration as well.  Cisco is very proficient at the remote end, as well as networking issues (of course).  EMC is proficient at the back-end file and information management services (NAS, backup/recovery, archiving, indexing, ILM, etc.)
   
• Intelligent SAN Replication -- for many years, serious remote replication required a powerful storage array to move information across long distances.  But in 2006, EMC announced a product (RecoverPoint) that uses the power of an intelligent SAN (in this case, the Cisco MDS using the SSM) to perform replication in the network.
  
  Tons of advantages here (see other posts), and I think many customers will be tempted to put in their first versions of this new approach to enterprise remote replication, if nothing else to just kick the tires.
   
• Data De-Dupe for Backup Part I -- data de-dupe is understandably the hottest storage technology around these days, simply because it has the potential to do so much for this historical IT challenge.  Not only does it make disk cheaper than tape, it slices backup time, and also has the added benefit of making the information reusable for archiving and repositories.
  
  We think the first use cases will be where networks are the constraining factor (remote backup and LAN backup), simply because the benefits are that much more pronounced.  But make no mistake, we'll see data de-dupe everywhere before long.  EMC's offering in this space is the recently acquired Avamar.
   
• VMware ESX Moves Up -- the vast majority of VMware server implementations I've seen during 2006 have been consolidation of what I call "tier 3" environments: test and dev, ancillary applications, and the like.  VMware's mid-year release of Virtual Infrastructure 3 laid the groundwork for ESX to move up to capture the next tier of application processing in large enterprises.
  
  But new issues crop up that weren't as important before.  Most use cases require a re-thinking of the storage environment, a re-thinking of the management environment, a re-thinking of how you do backup and recovery and so on.  EMC has done a lot of work doing 2006 to engineer its products for use with virtual servers, and I think we'll see that pay off during 2007.
   
• E-Discovery becomes the new ERP -- With the new FRCP rules in place, larger organizations will forced to produce electronic records as part of litigation.  Now, since legal time (and IT time) is expensive, and the consequences can be severe, I think we'll see a boom in strong interest for newer applications that support e-discovery. 
   
  EMC's compliance practice not only offers great product solutions built on EMC's portfolio, but the consulting services needed to understand what's needed and what's not.
   
• File virtualization become de-facto -- as more and more information ends up in file systems, more and more organizations will go looking for solutions that allow them to pool and move resources non-disruptively, and that's file virtualization.
  
  Another driving force is that everyone who's a NetApp customer is facing a very disruptive ONTAP 7G migration, and file virtualization provides great benefit in minimizing disruption to users.  Both trends will converge in 1H 07, and I think we'll see the interest spike.  EMC's offering in this space is Rainfinity, which appears to be the market leader as of this writing.

And What Should Be Hot, But Probably Won't Be ...

• 8Gb FC SANs -- yes, the folks who sell you FC components are trying to get people interested in 8Gb FC.  Heck, most customers haven't made the move to 4 Gb yet.  Here's an excellent example of a solution looking for a problem to solve -- at least during 2007.
   
• iSCSI in large enterprises -- yes, iSCSI is making strong inroads with smaller arrays and smaller customers, but has hit a brick wall in most bigger shops.  Reason: they've gone with FC, it's installed and it works.  I don't think this will be up for re-evaluation until we start seeing cost-effective 10Gb enet technology that's been optimized for storage, and that most likely wont be during 2007.
   
• Thin provisioning for critical apps -- as I've discussed before, thin provisioning has its strengths and its weaknesses.  Despite the best efforts of the smaller vendors, I don't think too many people are going to put anything overly important on a thin provisioned environment
   
• Storage grids -- despite my best efforts, I've tried to figure out how this particular marketecture might be different than, say, a big clustered NAS environment, or maybe aggressive storage virtualization.  I haven't been able to put my finger on it.  If I can't, I would think that customers won't figure it out either.  Nice buzzword, though -- very sexy.

2H 2007

• Storage-oriented encryption and key management -- most of the solutions available today can only be charitably described as 'tactical', but as we get into the back-end of 2007, we'll see more discussion and the first few implementations of better solutions: wire-speed encryption as part of the switch or HBA, and key management that understands the specific use cases associated with storage.  More here.
   
• Data De-Dupe For File Systems Part 1 -- data de-dupe technology also makes sense for file systems that you can read and write normally, but it is more difficult from a technology perspective.  By the 2nd half of 2007, I think you'll see the first few products that expose a file system with de-dupe capabilities: use it for tiering, archiving, as a backup target, test and dev, etc. -- and these will be wildly popular, of course.  I also would expect this to hit its stride in early 2008.
   
• Enhanced 10Gb enet -- one of the challenges with using IP as a common backbone in the data center (storage, server clustering, et. al.) is that different communication protocols expect different things from the wire.  I think by the end of 2007, we'll see vendors talking about enhanced 10Gb enet products that allow customers to consider a common technology set for all their data center networking needs, and hopefully beginning to eliminate the tangle of IP, FC, Infiniband, FICON, SAS, SATA, etc. that has been proliferating for a while.  No real deployments until 2008, in my humble opinion.
   
• Archiving mutates again -- the first round of information archiving projects were all about cost reduction.  The second round was all about risk reduction (e.g. compliance, retention, etc.).  I think in 2H 2007 the interest will shift towards archiving data to create new value from rich content -- extracting metadata, building contextual indexes, tying it in with enterprise search and collaborative workflow.
   
  Why?  Our economy is moving to a strong focus on knowledge workers.  Knowledge workers need different supporting tools than transactional workers.  We've started to see this already with our Documentum customers, but I think the trend will hit its full stride in late 2007.
   
• Bigger is better -- the current trend to consolidate storage platforms into ever-bigger complexes that offer multiple service levels, multiple cost points and a single point of management will continue to strengthen.  It started in early 2006, and shows no sign of backing off anytime soon.  Why?  Cheaper to buy, and cheaper to run -- it's that simple.
   
• More managed services -- storage and information management is getting bigger and more important.  Critical skills are in short supply.  The technology is there, but are the people?
   
  I think we'll see continued growth in a variety of models that offer storage and information management as a service, rather than as a product. 
  
  Whether it's on-site residents supplied by a vendor such as EMC, or on-site storage-as-a-service arrangements, or perhaps outsourced services targeted around backup, or archiving, or content management, I'd expect substantial growth in these areas.

Big Ideas, or Back On My Soapbox

I also think we'll see some softer, less discernable trends during 2007.

• Legislators will attempt to chip away at creating laws that both protect personal information against unauthorized use, but allow business to proceed (almost) normally.  Maybe we don't see definitive legislation in 2007, but we'll most definitely see activity in this area.
   
• More and more IT organizations will change how they view their mission -- from "owner of corporate technology" to "owner of corporate information".  And, as a result, they'll start thinking about their infrastructure -- information infrastructure -- very differently. 
   
  I am starting to use the term "informationist" (instead of "technologist") to describe this newer perspective.  We'll see if it catches on in 2007.

Finally, some very safe predictions -- you'll see more money and focus on storage and information management in 2007 (it's inevitable), you'll see more new technologies and approaches from vendors large and small, and -- yes -- it'll be a very interesting year!

Best wishes ...