AI and automation are driving a shift in the storage market – ITProPortal

Artificial intelligence (AI), automation and big data analytics projects are fueling a fundamental shift towards flash-based object storage, new data suggests.

This is according to a new report from software-defined object storage firm Scality, which found that, while some businesses expect the change to happen within a year, others believe a three-year time period is more realistic.

Polling IT decision-makers in the UK, France and Germany, the company discovered that most organizations looking to deploy advanced AI or ML projects are pivoting towards all-flash object storage, as it provides comprehensive data protection and rapid access to massive volumes of unstructured data.

While 90 percent of respondents across all three countries believe the move will take five years, the majority of French firms (76 percent) expect the change to wrap up within three.

A slim minority (3 percent) even think the change could occur within a year - mostly UK firms in the IT, technology, telecommunications, retail, distribution, and transport industries.

As flash becomes available at higher densities and lower costs, it is now suitable for high-capacity data storage, explained Paul Speciale, Chief Product Officer at Scality.

Object storage has begun to embrace flash media and, as the cost of flash decreases, it is likely to become the default media for object storage and will effectively make object storage the new primary storage for a much broader range of applications.

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AI and automation are driving a shift in the storage market - ITProPortal