Evolving Data Centers Yield Massive Data Growth

New-generation data centers are undergoing a rapid shift to cloud-enabled services, mobile computing and 24/7 operations, which is leading to new methods of creating information that help enterprises grow. The side effects, naturally, are massive data growth and a new set of management challenges as organizations struggle to find ways to keep pace with growing volumes of data, more demanding service levels for recovery and collapsing backup windows. (Graphic courtesy Permabit)

The good news is that survey respondents predicted a slight increase in overall IT budgets. The survey found that 32 percent of respondents indicated their IT budgets would increase in 2012, while 50 percent stated their budgets would remain unchanged in the coming year.

The bad news is that most organizations will have to manage more data without adding to IT staff. Of those surveyed, 54 percent reported no expected increases in IT head count in 2012, 16 percent expected an increase, and 29 percent remained undecided on increasing their staffing in 2012.

Data security and protection is also commanding IT management attention as 43 percent of those polled reported allocating up to 10 percent of their 2012 IT budgets for overall data protection, including such items as hardware, software, services/support and media. Another 34 percent plan to spend between 11 and 20 percent of their budget on overall data protection.

As IT decision makers re-evaluate their data protection plans, they can’t help but change the way they allocate their data protection dollars. Respondents said they spent less than budgeted for the year on data reduction technologies for managing data growth (11 percent), network and equipment (11 percent), disaster recovery (10 percent) and backup for virtual server environments (8 percent).

Massive data growth is being fueled in part by the continued adoption of server virtualization as organizations consolidate physical servers in an effort to reduce costs. It’s easy to create a virtual machine these days. As a result, 82 percent of respondents reported they are managing up to 250 virtual servers today, and an overwhelming 89 percent expect that number to increase in 2012.

More and more organizations are putting business-critical applications on virtual machines in their production environments to improve cost savings through operational efficiency, reduced capital expenditures related to hardware purchases or license-acquisition costs, and improved ease of management.

Which technologies will be most important to IT organizations as they map out how to manage and protect their data in 2012? Virtual server backup IT topped the list, followed closely by data reduction technologies for managing data growth, data backup and recovery, and disaster recovery.

Exploding data growth will require new strategies for information management that provide a seamless process from backup and recovery to archiving for data retention and easy, fast data retrieval. Organizations that are ahead of the curve have already re-evaluated their data protection strategies as a result of a server virtualization initiative. According to the CommVault survey, 31 percent of respondents have re-evaluated their strategies and another 46 percent plan to do so in the coming year.

Continued massive growth of data, more instances of big data analytics, more virtualization compliance software installations, the adoption of private and public clouds, social networking and smart mobile devices are the biggest IT trends heading into 2012. It is also expected that CEOs will instruct IT to find ways to create unique business value from the mountains and silos of data spread throughout the enterprise.