Adoption Of Open Storage To Outpace Legacy Solutions

Cutting traditional enterprise storage costs and
having a customized storage solution are key drivers in the industry transition
to Open Storage

A survey into attitudes of attendees at Europe’s first Open
Storage user conference, hosted by Nexenta Systems in Amsterdam on May 20, found that the
widespread use of legacy storage solutions is likely to be replaced or surpassed
by the deployment of Open Storage.

Key survey findings:

• Over
  85% of the 56 medium and large enterprise users and storage integrators who
  responded to the survey expect to use or deploy open storage in their IT
  environments within the next 18 months.
• The
  respondents spanned a wide range of storage users, averaging between 20-200TB
  of storage. Over 11% of the respondents claimed to be responsible for managing
  half a petabyte or more of data.
• Over
  two thirds (70%) of respondents believe open storage usage will eventually
  replace or overtake the proprietary storage solutions they use today.

According to Evan Powell, CEO of Nexenta Systems, senior IT decision-makers are rapidly waking up to the fact that open storage
solutions can offer the same feature-set as legacy storage systems, but at a
fraction of the cost.

Powell said: "We’re seeing our channel partners
win big deals against the established storage brands by offering comparable
solutions with identical technical features that cost 75 percent less than the
price of the legacy option. Users have become fed up of being locked-in to a
restricted technology roadmap that demands expensive, forklift upgrades every
time they wish to take advantage of a new technology innovation."

Key drivers for Open Storage:
The survey confirmed that the main driver (63%) for
switching to open storage was cutting enterprise storage costs. The second
biggest benefit (30%) of open storage was seen as having a more customized
storage solution, followed (18%) by the desire not to be locked-in to a single
vendor.

Powell concluded: "Storage has traditionally been
about fitting your business needs around whatever legacy platform is available
at any given time, at a cost that the user has little control over. Open
Storage changes this paradigm, driving hugely improved value throughout an
enterprise’s storage infrastructure. This survey reinforces the trends we’re
seeing in the storage industry at-large. It validates the need for a more
flexible environment where companies can have access to an enterprise storage
solution that supports cloud and VDI environments and cuts out vendor lock-in
while providing a genuine and easily measurable return on investment."

The Nexenta user conference took place on May 20, 2011
in Amsterdam,
The Netherlands. The survey was completed on site during the event and also
online by 56 medium and large enterprise users and storage integrators provides
a current snapshot of attitudes towards open storage.