10 main events in the market of DWH in 2012

In 2012 this year we were convinced of advantages of storages in a public cloud, and technology the flash memory and the converged infrastructure moved from the periphery to the mass consumer, the leading suppliers for the large companies and small business met in a fight for the market of medium-sized enterprises, it was not without surprises even in the market of modest hard drives and tape devices.

For solution providers, producers and clients, the 2012th became year when it is possible to take breath and to prepare for really amazing changes which wait for us in the 2013th and the next years.

10. Termination of growth in sales of software of data warehouses

The market of specialized backup devices actively grew, apparently according to the results of the last expired quarter 2012, but as the IDC analytical company reports, stagnation of sales of software of data warehouses is observed.

In the second quarter 2012 the world market of software of data warehouses, with a total amount of 3.4 bln. dollars, grew by only 0.9 percent in comparison with previous year, IDC in September reported. These are about 40 mln. dollars. On the other hand, the general world sales volume of specialized backup devices in the second quarter reached 2012 657 mln. dollars - impressive growth in comparison with 506 mln. dollars in the second quarter 2011.

Not really good perspectives at the suppliers specializing only in software.

Manufacturers of the equipment purchase the software companies and interfere on their market. Now it is clear to all why Symantec entered the market of backup devices.

9. New life of old devices

The mood of all who regretted for lack of new technologies of hard drives which number of manufacturers was laid off to three improved when engineers of HGST, now divisions of Western Digital, provided the first hard drives with helium filling. Having replaced air in the drive with helium, it is possible to reduce space between plates that allows to increase significantly data capacity without large investments into new technology.

Illusions about death of the magnetic tape broke at the end of 2012 with release of drives and cartridges of LTO-6 with a capacity up to 6.25 Tbyte at data compression and the transmission rate of condensed data up to 400 MB/s.

Emergence of these devices showed that the consortium of developers of LTO technology continues work according to the plan which stretches for the years ahead. The magnetic tape remains an economic method of archiving of data for the companies, despite often false promises to reduce archiving cost in a cloud.

8. Main trend of year: Big Data

Thanks to an opportunity to obtain useful information from the mountain of unstructured data which prevailing part is changeable inherently "Big Data" (big data) became the motto of the industry, though have not a direct bearing on information storage.

In 2012 most solution providers for data storage of the first and second levels took some actions concerning Big Data, usually announcing cooperation with Hadoop, the developer of the open source software for work with Big Data, or cooperation with the program and technical company connected with Hadoop.

But others, having convinced of limitation of scaling, replication and many other opportunities of Hadoop absolutely simple for solution providers of data storage, focused on distribution of these functions on Big Data.

7. Fever of acquisitions

Thanks to acquisitions in 2012 the possibility of large changes in the developing industry opens. Suppliers paid the main attention not to growth, and to mastering the technologies increasing their competitiveness.

The Dell company which spent 2.4 bln. dollars for Quest Software purchase to receive the advanced software product of protection and data management became the leader of acquisitions. Dell also purchased the supplier of protection programs of data of AppAssure.

The companies HDS IBM were also purchased suppliers of programs for data protection. Improvement of cloud storages, for example, purchase of Microsoft of StorSimple company, developer of hybrid technologies of local and cloud data storage for Windows platforms was the purpose of several acquisitions; absorption by Persistent Systems company of a cloud platform of Doyenz intended for disaster recovery as service; acquisition of the supplier of open technology of backup in Zmanda cloud Carbonite company.

In the field of the equipment the IBM company showed that it is ready to compete in the market of storage devices on a basis a flash technology thanks to purchase of the pioneer a flash memory of Texas Memory Systems.

6. Show money

Investors poured in the huge capitals as in beginning, and the known companies specializing stored data.

Code 42 Software, the developer of a series of solutions of disaster recovery and data storage in CrashPlan cloud for consumers, small and medium business, and corporations became one of the companies which attracted the largest investments. In January, 2012 Code 42 received 52.5 mln. dollars at the first stage of the venture funding.

Lag behind the known company Violin Memory which received 50 mln. dollars in April including SAP a little, and the developer of hybrid arrays of hard drives with technology a flash of Nimble Storage which in September managed to attract 40.7 mln. dollars.

5. Up a corporate ladder

Several system providers of data storage who were usually guided by consumers and small business became interested in the market of medium-sized and large enterprises, and transferred a part of the products up to seize the new opportunities.

Among these suppliers:

• Overland Storage. In July the company broke the image of manufacturer NML and data storage devices of initial level, having released the first own SAN device of the corporate level in which the rotating disk and SSD technology are combined with software expected large enterprises.
• Carbonite and Mozy, two well-known suppliers of Internet solutions for backup, generally for consumers and the smallest companies, in 2012 submitted the first serious programs for a sales channel to offer the technologies to small, medium business and large customers.
• Drobo and Netgear, two suppliers of the data storage devices which were traditionally working for small clients in the field of business updated the lines the products expected the companies of average and initial large level.

4. Down to small business

Not only small suppliers saw benefits in the market of medium-sized companies. In 2012 several the suppliers, largest in the industry, paid attention to small business.

Among them:

• IBM. In November the company released the Storwize V3700 device with the same software, as at model of higher level Storwize V7000, technology of virtualization of data warehouses SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and such functions as replication, thin preparation, a flash level with independent optimization and access to a cloud. The initial price of an array recommended by the manufacturer - less than 11,000 dollars.
• NetApp. In June the company entered the market of SMB with the new unified storage array at the price less than 8000 dollars with the additional possibility of creation of pools of SSD and other functions and services fitting into a product line of the supplier.
• HP. In December the company produced the HP 3PAR model of StoreServe 7400 with the starting price about 25,000 dollars. As a result the family of the high level of 3PAR goes down on the market of more available systems and will compete to the EMC VNX family.

3. The converged infrastructure at last is widely used

Till 2012 the companies Cisco, NetApp and EMC (two last in partnership with Cisco) and also HP (on an independent basis), were the main supporters of convergent infrastructure in which technologies for servers, networks and data storage are connected in single solution. They can be constructed to order as VCE Vblock, or are brought together on site operation as FlexPod or VSPEX.

In 2012 provision changed: interest was shown by all other leading suppliers of servers and DWH, including Dell, issued the solutions Active Infrastructure and Converged Blade Data Center, HDS company with the Hitachi Unified Compute Platform and IBM platform with PureSystems.

Also attracted an opportunity to control the most important part of cloud strategy and a data processing center of consumers the beginning companies, such as Simplivity with the universal OmniCube and Yottabyte device with its approach on the basis of the standard equipment.

2. A flash memory - not a soap bubble

In 2012 a flash memory was widely used considerably more in the field of data storage. All leaders and many minor suppliers provided the strategy and approaches. Also there was a tremendous choice of new methods of application a flash memory for improvement of characteristics of data warehouses, including:

• Several beginning suppliers released the data storage arrays executed entirely on a basis a flash technology, having replaced hard drives with solid state drives or modules a flash memory for the applications requiring ultrahigh performance.
• Modules PCIe flash memory, released last year as a method to increase high-speed performance of application programs, received a power pulse when two suppliers suggested a method to connect modules from several servers for sharing of a cache and application programs.
• Network devices of caching on a basis a flash technologies using which several servers or devices of memory can share a flash storage through a local network also went on sale.

1. Application of a public cloud for data storage extends

So far suppliers of traditional memory tried to provide the platform as the best for placement of public or private clouds for data storage, Amazon Web Services achieved serious progress in providing storage as services:

• In August AWS provided Glacier, service for long-term data storage. Data storage cost in Glacier - only 1 cent for 1 Gbyte a month, but data access slow, and for too fast removal or access to more than 5 percent of data penalties are imposed.
• On other end of a range the new copy of a cloud of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud under the name High I/O providing the external interface on the basis of SSD to service AWS for the applications requiring high-speed data access in a cloud with short delays.
• AWS and NetApp signed the partnership agreement under which arrays of data storage of Netapp in the centers of placement of the equipment certified by Amazon company will work with services EC2 and S3 through AWS Direct Connect.

Source: Joseph F. Covar, CRN/USA