2023 Technology and Data Storage Trend Forecast

Technology Trend Forecast:

1. Data democratization will be the primary competitive advantage in 2023
   In response to the economic slowdown, business leaders have relied more on their teams. However, most of these teams have been downsized. When companies open their teams to access various data without restrictions, employees will naturally gain rich insights from in-depth customer data analysis. Enterprises can use data to grasp demand, thereby better overcoming customer pain points, and improving customer satisfaction and retention rates.
2. As the industry cloud grows, legal compliance will liberate innovation
   To meet the legal compliance requirements of highly regulated industries, cloud service providers will launch more clouds and services required by individual industries. Legal compliance can not only reduce information security risks, but also promote efficiency, help share knowledge, and implement common systems and control within the organization. As enterprises expect cloud service providers to take into account both legal compliance and innovation, the future industry cloud will be more prosperous.
3. To increase data analysis capacity and accelerate innovation, multi-cloud will become localized this year
   More enterprises will choose the data storage method located at the edge of the city. Since a large amount of data is generated and consumed in the metropolitan area, if the data storage location can be closer to the place where it is generated, it will be able to realize the large-scale data analysis workload. Accelerated analysis of large datasets will also lead to better machine learning models, which in turn will accelerate innovation and make better decisions at the right time.
4. Cloud service providers will face more demands on improving the transparency of technology stacking and resolving concerns about information security
   In response to the increasing government software security regulations and customers' concerns about software vulnerabilities, software vendors must increase the transparency of technology stacks. As pressure on customers continues to mount, cloud providers will be required to be more open and offer new ways to evaluate IT purchasing decisions.
5. Automation will fill security skills gaps and create new ones
   Due to the shortage of information security talents, organizations have adopted automated information security tools to be cost-effective. However, managing these tools requires professional skills. Automation may fill the existing information security skills gap, but it may also create new vulnerabilities. Automation requires A level of professionalism that may exceed the current majors of many information security personnel. If organizations can carefully select new technologies and invest in improving the skills of IT personnel, they will be able to effectively prevent information security threats and at the same time strengthen the loyalty of employees to the organization.

Data Storage Trend Forecast:

1. More and more dedicated chips are needed to operate data movement
   Enterprises are facing a flood of data today, and the industry is working hard to reduce the movement of data within the system. To reduce the amount of data movement, there are two main ways, one is to use data reduction technology, and the other is to use data awareness methods.
   • Hardware-based data reduction technologies will become more and more popular, among which data compression and deduplication will be the main ones.
     • Compression reduces large amounts of data through data flow and algorithms.
     • Deduplication looks for identical data streams, stores only a single copy, and replaces the remaining duplicates with tags. If two documents differ only by one word, they can be simplified into one data set containing common information, and the other data set will only have different words.
   • Among various data detection tools, AI and machine learning-based data manipulation methods will be widely developed in the new year.
   • If a machine-learning algorithm records data patterns as it receives data, it can determine data similarity, and perhaps train the system to discard the first 10 inputs after receiving 10 identical inputs.
   • High-efficiency, high-speed powerful hardware is used on the data path. This hardware is closer to the location of the data and will be able to judge data selection and data placement. At present, many enterprises have implemented the data path with the assistance of processing units.
   If enterprises are unwilling to invest in data processing at this layer, they will have to continue to invest in expanding storage layer capacity.
2. Emerging interfaces will continue to simplify the complexity of internal storage systems
   CXL and NVMe will cause heated discussions in 2022, and the new year will tend to be a more simplified deployment. For example, NVMe-oF (NVMe over fabric) is widely used to connect many terminal devices. Interface convergence can simplify the solution while expanding the use cases of composition. Under this trend, enterprises can reduce connection and hardware overhead. Since various hardware can be mixed and matched, the hardware can be applied to more use cases.
3. HAMR technology will become more popular in business
   Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology will support the latest large-capacity devices. HAMR can greatly increase the magnetic recording density and promote the development and growth of next-generation hardware in the next decade. HAMR technology will drive capacity growth and provide enterprises with more data storage space.
4. Cloud-native software momentum is bullish
   The common container deployment model allows enterprises to improve flexibility and elasticity, and cloud-native computing helps organizations use open-source software stacks in public, private, and hybrid clouds to build and run scalable and reliable applications. Cloud-native software is deployed in a unified manner and simplifies the organization's development, operation, and reliability architecture. The ecosystem is centered on application developers, allowing organizations to consume according to needs, rapidly expand the scale, flexibly move workloads, and manage failures more easily.
5. Reduction, recycling, and reuse are increasingly important to the industry
   
   • Weight reduction: At the device level, we hope to reduce data movement through compression and other technologies, and reducing data writing can also reduce power consumption.
   • Recycling: Data storage companies explore how to recycle various device components and reuse them.
   • Reuse: In terms of storage devices, reuse means that the hard disk is resold after clearing the data of the storage device with security technology.
   True sustainability is a total cost of ownership model that considers the sustainability of the earth. To maintain the world we live, work, and play, whether it is an individual, the government, or a business, we all have the responsibility to maintain a livable world together. However, this has gradually become a common practice among customers' expectations.

Impact Trends Brought About by Storage Technologies and Value Chains in the Asia-Pacific Region:

1. Density for flash storage
   With the advancement of flash storage technology, such as QLC (quad-level cell) and Direct Flash, the cost of flash memory is reduced and its density is increased, making many companies begin to use flash memory to replace the existing traditional hard disk storage. When the censorship system for environmentally sustainable development becomes more and more stringent, enterprises will gradually abandon traditional hard drives and use flash storage technology to save energy and space. In 2023, Pure Storage expects a leap in the density of flash storage technology, making it more suitable for Tier 2 and even Tier 3 workloads.
2. Anywhere Service Economy will become more prosperous
   Driven by cultural shifts within companies, especially those that rely on external investors, IT investments will accelerate toward flexible consumption models, such as subscriptions or pay-as-you-go growth. Investment institutions and directors will increasingly be optimistic about companies that do not hold large capital assets because these companies have the financial flexibility to allow them to invest in more strategic business areas, which will lead to the service-anywhere economy in 2023 years to expand further.
3. Manufacturing processes will be redesigned to mitigate the harm caused by supply chain disruptions
   As supply chain issues persist due to geopolitical tensions, companies will have to reconsider whether their software development/product engineering cycles need to be adjusted. This will prompt organizations to consider a more modular approach, enabling the reuse and repurposing of standard components. This approach provides greater flexibility to complete project advancements in the event of a broken supply chain while avoiding duplication of effort in the software development lifecycle. Companies can effectively mitigate supply chain risk and increase resilience by realigning software development and product engineering processes to incorporate part reusability.
4. ESG accountability will extend from the boardroom to the organization
   For most companies, the importance of ESG will continue to increase, but the focus will be refocused on accountability and practical action. Governments are developing policies and tax regulations to limit carbon emissions, and companies will need to comply with new standards. More and more investors, partners, and consumers will decide whether to trust companies based on ESG practices and performance. As stakeholders demand ESG integrity, companies and organizations will continue to be under pressure to transform ESG strategies and reporting. At the same time, the focus on ESG social responsibility and corporate governance continues to increase, not only to meet regulations but also to meet the expectations of customers, partners, and employees.
5. Data security will shift to fast recovery functions
   Information security threats have gone beyond the scope of ransomware. Although victims pay ransoms to attackers, they may not be able to successfully retrieve and restore data. In 2023, hackers will change their strategies from merely locking data for ransom to direct theft. A safety net that relies on cyber security insurance policies as a last resort will no longer be able to provide adequate data protection. Enterprises will tend to adopt more secure data methods, and unified fast file and object storage platforms, as the last line of defense against ransomware or unscrupulous insiders, providing enterprises with rapid recovery.
6. Container adoption of nano services will increase in 2023
   With the increasing adoption of containers and microservices, the topic of nano services will increase in 2023. Nano services are designed for single-function applications and are even simpler to run than microservices.