Guest author: Bob Hankins
What’s growing faster: Demand for cloud storage capacity, or storage density? Last year, market research firm IHS iSuppli estimated that cloud densities are growing at about 20% annually, much less than the demand for overall capacity, which Gartner estimated is growing at a rate of 40-60% every year. This raises the question: Have we reached the point where density can keep up with capacity, or will the continued growth of cloud demands still result in the need for more capacity?
Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock.com
TwinStrata recently surveyed 148 attendees at the Cloud Computing Expo in New York. They found that 60% of those they interviewed agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “It seems like we are always running out of storage.” More of them have also made a long-term investment in cloud, with 37% saying they had been using the cloud for 3 or more years, up from 27% last year. However, it appears that demand for cloud may be leveling off, with the report stating, “more people have actually deployed cloud services than plan to deploy them.”
Only time will tell if we have in fact reached this tipping point, but for now, what’s your strategy? Is the increase in storage density going to slow the need for expanding storage, or is this just hype, and capacities will continue to increase?
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