2024 Predictions

This report was written by Eric Herzog, CMO, Infinidat Ltd.

 
Prediction #1: Triple play of cyber resiliency, detection, and recovery will create an overall corporate cybersecurity strategy in 2024
The convergence of cyber resilience, detection, and recovery on a single storage platform will fuel a trend for 2024 around higher levels of cybersecurity for enterprise storage environments. This prediction is significant because primary storage has become a main target of cybercriminals for the most insidious and hard-to-detect ransomware and malware attacks that wreak costly havoc on enterprises. Cybercrime is predicted to grow to more than $10 trillion in 2025 – no wonder it was cited as the #2 threat by the CEOs of the Fortune 500. Combining resilience, detection, and recovery from cyberattacks will be the key in 2024 to harden storage infrastructure.
 
Prediction #2: Enterprises will be able to free up money from storage for AI and other critical IT projects in 2024
Dramatically reducing the costs of enterprise storage frees up IT budget to fund other significant new projects, such as AI projects, cybersecurity-related projects, or other strategic activities. This trend for 2024 will play a pivotal role in enterprises where there will be pressure to accelerate AI projects for the next stage of digital transformation, as well as to improve cybersecurity against more sophisticated AI-driven cyberattacks. With IT budgets projected by Gartner to grow by 8% in 2024 but inflation and a fluttering economy continuing to be a global issue, funding for these new projects will need to come from somewhere. A smart approach to shifting IT spending internally that is taking hold is to remove costs from storage, while simultaneously improving storage. These cost savings can be used for critical IT projects.
 
Prediction #3: Green storage will blossom in 2024
Having more storage capacity in the same form-factor and having fewer storage arrays are the way for enterprises to be more environmental-friendly in 2024, while also reducing their Capex, Opex, and IT resource needs. Fewer arrays mean less carbon footprint, less to cool with the use of coolants, and less to recycle, translating into a much lower impact on the environment. Consolidating multiple arrays into a single storage platform means the use of less energy, fitting a strategy to advance sustainability. Storage upgrades also bring energy savings, which also translates into cost savings. Consolidation also means much improved, more efficient utilization of space. This trend will see in the new year an increase of audits of enterprise storage infrastructure and more intense identification of inefficiencies and waste in the storage estate. It will increase the adoption of green storage.
 
Prediction #4: Seamless hybrid cloud integration will be easier in 2024
A significant number of enterprises will adopt the new capabilities that have made it easy for enterprises to manage on-premises private cloud storage and the public cloud storage as one, integrated, software-defined infrastructure, as if the public cloud is just another “array” identified in the software’s user interface. At the heart of why hybrid cloud is so strong, and so attractive, are cost and control. Enterprises will be able to keep costs lower by using an on-prem storage system after storage consolidation of many arrays into one or two systems. They also don’t have to pay the hidden costs of moving data back and forth from the public cloud. They can use the public cloud for the use cases that are most appropriate, such as archived data, backup data, DR, or DevOps. Simultaneously, enterprises will keep better control of their data by having it on-prem, ensuring compliance, especially with recent regulations about data governance and data privacy.
 
Prediction #5: 2024 will see a dramatic expansion of containers in hybrid cloud data centers
The adoption and expanded usage of containers will experience a substantial upswing in 2024. This multi-year trend is gaining momentum for the new year because of the increasing need for enterprises to innovate at a faster rate today than ever to meet evolving customer expectations. Enterprises will become more digitally-focused in order to better compete. Containers, which exemplify a cloud-native approach, provide a cost-efficient way to automate the deployment of modern applications – and do it at scale – while making them portable, environment-agnostic, and less resource-dependent to achieve cost savings. It’s estimated that approximately 90% of global organizations will be running containerized applications in production by the year 2026, according to Gartner analysts – up from 40% just 2 years ago.
 
Prediction #6: The IT skills gap will drive increased adoption of autonomous automation in enterprise storage
The IT skills gap across the data center and, particularly, in enterprise storage has emerged? it will get wider in 2024. Fewer IT professionals are choosing to specialize in storage. While it makes storage administrators more valuable, an increasing number of enterprises are having trouble staffing the roles to manage traditional, legacy storage in support of applications, workloads and the entire data infrastructure. In 2024, we will see enterprises turn to AI-equipped autonomous automation as the solution for enterprise storage. Use of autonomously automated storage will also free up valuable IT headcount to be utilized in other areas of the datacenter and enterprise software environments.
 
Prediction #7: User experience will be redefined for enterprise storage in 2024
Enterprises are not only looking for a box on which to run their applications and workloads; they are increasingly looking for excellence in service and support to be built into their storage solution. In 2024, enterprises will increasingly opt for a storage vendor that offers the best support, best SLAs, and best proactive professional services, yet at a low cost or for no charge. It redefines the expectations for user experience. Enterprises want to know they have an advocate within the storage provider who can lend their expertise to solve challenges for the customer. They want to know they can get L3 support direct on a moment’s notice. They want to have confidence in the integration capabilities of a professional services team.