Analysts predict cloud storage trends for 2022

As an additional 12 months of working versus a COVID-19 backdrop commences, storage admins will have to go on to find techniques to help remote function models and include combos of cloud and on-premises infrastructure to keep accessibility to critical workloads.

In 2022, storage distributors will attempt to handle those suffering details by supporting the progress of hybrid infrastructure.

“You can find been this pendulum swing from transferring all the things into the cloud to all the things out of the cloud,” reported Ray Lucchesi, president of Silverton Consulting. “Hybrid cloud still helps make perception. Moving data all over is still expensive.”

Ray LucchesiRay Lucchesi

But IT administrators will want to check their funds as they equilibrium the increasing desire in Kubernetes by DevOps groups with the value of cloud storage, sector authorities reported.

SearchStorage spoke with Lucchesi and other storage authorities about what tendencies they be expecting to create in 2022.

Cloud continues to make its mark

As a lot more enterprises look at hybrid infrastructure for storage, distributors will endeavor to woo consumers with managed cloud services to simplify the transition. People distributors contain hyperscalers these types of as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud System as nicely as those that present cloud-like services these types of as Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Dave Raffo Dave Raffo

“[The distributors] never have to ship bins and [buyers] never have to buy arrays,” reported Dave Raffo, a senior analyst at Evaluator Team.

Supply chain constraints could pressure enterprises to look at the cloud about on-premises merchandise as nicely, Raffo added.

“[The cloud] is not genuinely much less expensive if you have a whole lot of data,” he reported. “It is the purchasing system and administration that is so considerably simpler.”

Cloud storage distributors go on to attempt to make cloud a lot more attractive. Last 12 months, AWS released managed file services for OpenZFS and Netapp OnTap. The new services empower a shut approximation of on-premises file devices to transfer current workloads to the cloud and join with other AWS services.

[The cloud] is not genuinely much less expensive if you have a whole lot of data. … It is the purchasing system and administration that is so considerably simpler.
Dave RaffoSenior Analyst, Evaluator Team

As desire in cloud storage grows, Raffo anticipates the hyperscalers will expand catastrophe restoration (DR) and back again-up managed services as nicely.

AWS furnished proof of the opportunity pattern in 2021 when it manufactured AWS Elastic Catastrophe Restoration generally available while rival Google Cloud System touted the services of Actifio, a DR business acquired by Google Cloud in 2020.

“The traditional backup seller has a SaaS or is using cloud as a [backup] focus on,” he reported. “But now we’re looking at the public cloud guys trying to get in and do that backup.”

Raffo also anticipates a lot more SAN services, concentrating on large legacy databases, to come to be managed cloud services in the in close proximity to long term.

Reducing storage expenditures

Cloud storage could be a puzzling mess of availability and value tiers in 2022, a point hyperscalers are conscious of, according to Andrew Smith, a investigate manager at IDC.

Smith reported he didn’t foresee looking at large price tag improvements in the new 12 months as considerably as he expects to see a lot more “adjacent” services for buyers underserved by current tier models. People new services, he reported, will probable assure superior availability for data and do away with some of the complexity and confusion between warm or cold storage pricing tiers.

“It is all about enabling enterprises to do a lot more with fewer,” Smith reported. “Progressively, enterprises have to store a lot more data for longer intervals of time. If you feel about the sheer dimensions of data potential to be saved, tenths of a cent can make an influence.”

AWS released Amazon S3 Glacier Fast Retrieval and greater the services available in its Free of charge Tier in 2021, two adjacent merchandise that Smith anticipates other hyperscalers will mimic through 2022.

“It is difficult to evaluate the marketplace influence of these services,” he reported. “A whole lot of enterprises have adopted these tools, but the freemium, pay back-as-you-go model is ramping up.”

Enterprise Kubernetes

IT functions for much larger enterprises will go on to undertake Kubernetes for cloud deployments of applications in the coming 12 months, according to Raffo, and a lot more distributors will present a persistent container storage service.

He expects these new services from distributors will tempt storage administrators, who are previously looking for to simplify their time nursing DevOps storage requirements for cloud-indigenous, stateless apps.

“Developers operating Kubernetes are normally operating in the cloud,” he reported. “All storage distributors are carrying out their best to help Kubernetes in the cloud.”

Lucchesi reported the portability of Kubernetes throughout hybrid infrastructure, together with the open resource origins of the Linux container orchestrator, means container adoption among enterprise DevOps groups will probable maximize in the several years to occur together with the want for storage admins to residence data for these stateless containers.

“You can run [Kubernetes] anywhere and it can be just a bunch of containers,” he reported. “It is been creating [in the enterprise] and it can be starting off to consider off.”

Tim McCarthy is a journalist dwelling in the North Shore of Massachusetts. He covers cloud and data storage news.