How to Future-proof Your Storage Investments

The emergence of data-heavy applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) has upped the enterprise storage ante. Combined with the data in apps used daily to run the business, the limits of storage are being stretched.

Yet having to continually procure storage capacity doesn’t make sense; forward-looking CIOs and IT decision makers must future-proof their investments. Here’s what to consider.

• Performance

Digital business will constantly evolve, meaning organizations will need to deploy applications and services as business needs change or new objectives emerge.

Start thinking about the ways in which adding workloads or adopting emerging technologies will intensify performance demands. And then seek low-latency storage options and hybrid storage technology that combines all flash and adaptive arrays for improved speed.

• Capacity

Capacity really goes hand-in-hand with performance; both are imperative to meet business objectives. Yet predicting capacity requirements can be a crapshoot.

The key here is to aim for, and then maintain, a balanced storage infrastructure. Consider that all-flash storage typically drives down costs and improves affordability as needs flux. In addition, a hybrid array, which combines solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs), enables IT to prioritize workloads to meet capacity demands and achieve greater cost efficiency.

• Visibility

It’s becoming increasingly critical to take a proactive approach to service disruptions. Yet doing so means first having visibility throughout the storage stack, and then applying predictive analytics (more on this below) to stay ahead of the disruption game. 

Start by gaining visibility into how the storage infrastructure is functioning, where demand is greatest, and where tweaks can be made for performance optimization. Then, seek data storage management and automation solutions that not only enable infrastructure visibility, but also accelerate storage provisioning.

• Adaptability

Take into account how the storage investment will integrate with emerging developments, such as non-volatile memory express (NVMe) and storage-class memory (SCM).

NVMe technology for SSDs is pushing storage capacity and speed of data transfer to new levels with its low latency and bandwidth improvements. As Greg Schulz, founder of technology advisory firm Server Storage IO, writes: “One of the great things IMHO about NVMe is that you can have it your way, where and when you need it, as a replacement or companion to what you have.”

SCM technology promises faster speeds than flash and offers persistent data storage. Steve McDowell, storage analyst with Moor Insights and Strategy, writes in Forbes: “This is the year that the industry will see in-memory computing, big database, and analytics applications begin to adopt SCM as a core part of their architectures.”

Putting it all together

The HPE Nimble Storage platform delivers the functionality that companies need to future-proof their storage investments.

• Performance: Based on testing and comparisons with existing Nimble Storage products, the latest platform delivers up to 220% better price for performance.
• Capacity: The platform comes with a Store More Guarantee: If it doesn’t meet the storage efficiency of an all-flash competitor, HPE will match additional capacity for free.
• Visibility: The platform’s integration with HPE InfoSight brings greater visibility through predictive storage and management.
• Adaptability. The new flash arrays support NVMe and SCM, as well as the performance demands of emerging technologies.

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