Upcoming trends in disk-based backup, IP SAN, security and high
January 10, 2006 - Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) today announced
its technology predictions for 2006. Dave Hitz, Founder and Executive VP of
NetApp highlights the era of separate databases and server/storage silos is
over and the rest of the decade will be dominated by infrastructure projects
designed to consolidate databases and rationalise the server and storage
network.
Consolidation
Simplification and cost reduction through consolidation will dominate buying
decisions in 2006 with the boom of the 90s and recession-driven cost
reductions of the past 3 years proving that complexity kills both IT's
ability to respond to changes in the business and its ability to manage
costs. The consolidation and simplification projects will lay the groundwork
for the next major gain to enterprise IT's ability to grow while reducing
costs."
Security
Security will continue to be a top priority for businesses in 2006 but it
will be run like a military operation, incorporating need-to-know access
controls, compartmentalisation and role separation. A majority of
enterprises will start encrypting backup data on tapes before they are sent
offsite due to fear of security breaches.
Disk-based backup
2006 will see an increased reliance on disk-based backup to compliment tape
libraries as an overall reliance on the tape library weakens. 2006 will also
be the year for mass adoption of VTL solutions as it becomes the preferred
mechanism for businesses to seamlessly transition to disk.
Another top trend in 2006 will be the realisation that backup is a strategic
reservoir of information. That means it is for more than just recovery and
needs to be indexed and searched so that data can be managed and searched
effectively.
IP SAN / iSCSI
2006 will see IP SAN (iSCSI) remaining "hot" as mainstream for Windows
server environments with 4Gb Fibre Channel also becoming mainstream. The IP
SAN (iSCSI) market for departmental UNIX environments will emerge and IP SAN
(iSCSI) boot-from-SAN will revolutionise server provisioning. However the
market will need VOIP infrastructure upgrades to accelerate IP SAN
deployment.
Servers
In 2006 database deployments will shift rapidly to industry standard servers
with 64bit, multi-core processors (AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon64s) because
the performance will be offered at a good price and the stability and
reliability of the databases and operating systems for these servers will
increase.
About Network Appliance
Network Appliance is a world leader in unified storage solutions for today's
data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance
has delivered technology, product, and partner firsts that simplify data
management. Information about Network Appliance solutions and services is
available at www.netapp.com.
For Further Information, please contact:
Sally Robards/Kate Mills
Kaizo
Firstname.lastname@kaizo.net
020 7580 8852
