2025 Data Storage and Active Archive Predictions: Part 3
What’s next for data storage and active archives? Part three our Annual Trends blog is filled with insights on the future of storage. See what our members have to say about the future of storage including cybersecurity, storage virtualization, optical and healthcare data.
Healthcare: Using AI in Cyber Risk Reduction
Although artificial intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of discussions in active archiving for healthcare, continuing to use AI to help in the cyber security world will be a must in 2025. Hackers continue to advance AI technology to develop more complicated and complex hacking initiatives and ethical hackers are required to do the same to prevent it. The push for interoperability in healthcare will require advanced AI hacking prevention techniques and 2025 is going to be a big year for prevention and balance: How to share data and still keep it secure. Concerns over AI’s ability to learn and evaluate critical thinking processes are not unfounded. Patient safety is already a concern as hackers try to infiltrate medical devices and this will definitely need to be a focus in 2025. 2024 provided good examples of areas of vulnerability. In 2025, initiatives should be increased to include analysis of these gaps in protection, and the budgets increased to provide funding to actually close them. – Kel Pults, DHA, MSN, RN, NI-BC, NREMT, Chief Clinical Officer and VP Government Strategy, MediQuant
The Rise of Storage Virtualization and the Data Fabric
As organizations look to optimize their storage strategies in 2025, the rise of storage virtualization is making it easier to interconnect various data storage technologies. Businesses can maximize their existing investments and avoid vendor lock-in by leveraging a data fabric—an architecture that unifies cloud, disk, tape, and flash storage into a single, logical namespace. This trend towards virtualization allows for a more flexible approach to data management, enabling businesses to mix and match technologies to meet specific needs. For example, high-performance workloads can run on flash storage while colder data is moved to tape in an active archive. The ability to integrate various storage solutions seamlessly will be a key enabler for organizations aiming to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and scale their operations. – Jason Lohrey, CEO, Arcitecta
Trend Towards Hybrid Active Archives
As the volume of stored digital data increases year on year, many organizations increasingly turn to public cloud storage. This is true for active archives because storing in cloud object storage is scalable, secure and, most importantly, is convenient. However, for large archives, it is a costly option. For this reason, we are seeing a trend towards hybrid storage solutions where data is stored both on premises and in the cloud. This can minimize egress, and it avoids costly fees when an organization decides it must migrate its content from one cloud provider to an alternative, whether that be a different provider or an on-premises solution. – Phil Storey, CEO, XenData
Occam’s Razor: The Re-Emergence of Optical for Active Archive
Next year we’ll see organizations empowered by advances in materials sciences related to optical storage media. Leveraging well-known, existing manufacturing processes these new optical discs will be easily scalable with a robust capacity roadmap well beyond 1TB. Benefits such as physical immutability, immunity to electro-magnetic radiation and pulse (EMR and EMP), solid TCO actuals, and ultra-long media lifespans (minimum 50-100 years) are built in. And while they might choose not to wear bell bottoms or drive wood-paneled station wagons, greater numbers of data archive professionals will again look to proven solutions from the past, now prepped and ready for the future. Happy New Year in advance, and here’s to a great 2025! – Jeff Rosen, VP Global Solution Sales, Savartus
