By 2025, markets across the globe have continued to experience explosive growth in data volumes, driven by cloud adoption, AI, IoT, ecommerce and real-time analytics. All this has led to an exponential rise in demand for scalable, secure and high-performance storage solutions.
Mordor Intelligence says the local datacentre storage market is now valued at over $500mn, and predicts it will reach around $890mn by 2030. The research firm cites data residency rules, consistent growth in datacentric applications and steady growth in cloud infrastructure as the primary drivers of this growth. And there are the millions of payments processed by financial institutions every day, high-resolution telecom data, and evolving workflow demands that are pushing enterprises towards storage solutions that can handle load, balance throughput, and provide reliable quality of service.
The storage market has also evolved. Flash is now a cost-effective technology and forms the backbone of performance storage as it offers speed and capacity. Tape, like the mainframe, is still fighting rumours of its death while consistently advancing its capacity, durability and cost efficiencies – particularly in ultra-long-term archiving. Network Attached Storage, cloud storage, Storage Area Network, and object storage bring unique capabilities across shared file-level storage, internet-based storage, high-performance storage, and unstructured data storage. Hybrid and multicloud solutions offer more choice, such as a blend of on-premise, public and private clouds for improved flexibility, resilience and compliance.
A lot of companies are still reliant on physical processes, which means there has to be a large capex spend to implement an entirely new digital transformation project.
Shivan Mansingh, Metrofile
Companies need solutions that allow them to manage growing storage demands alongside the country’s ongoing infrastructure challenges, the usual security risks and data sovereignty concerns. An effective approach will be dictated by the business’ needs. Is it all-flash for workloads with low-latency requirements? Tape or cloud for long-term secure and compliant data archiving? Or is it a hybrid mix that offers the right balance across risk tolerance, budget, flexibility and sustainability?
“It’s important that companies understand what their data is and what it needs,” says Mike Styer, independent IT consultant, Axiz. “What needs to be encrypted? What needs multiple copies in case it’s a target for a ransomware attack? What are the underlying storage requirements? Do you need super performance and really high levels of security, or is it an audit requirement? Is the data transient, so you don’t need to secure it?”
The categorisation of data is important in determining the best storage fit, especially as AI becomes increasingly useful as a data mining tool.
Styer says companies should approach their data with their AI strategy in mind, so storage is designed around what they’re going to need.
“A good assessment goes a long way to determining your storage structure,” says Darrin Murray, specialist sales executive, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies. “Once you know the ratios across applications, use cases and data required for each bucket of storage, you can choose the right platform.”
Storage is also a broader conversation than where the business puts its documents. Shivan Mansingh, managing director, Metrofile, says the more information is put into repositories, the more unstructured it becomes. “Are you spinning up a site and dropping the data in there? What’s your retrieval rate? A lot of companies are still reliant on physical processes, which means there has to be a large capex spend to implement an entirely new digital transformation project.”
By assessing where the business is in its lifecycle, companies can choose storage that actually fits within their budgets and digital strategy. Cloud is still a solid option, but it needs to be balanced with other storage tools to manage the risks that come with it. Cloud offers scalability, rapid deployment, and access to advanced services, but there are concerns.
The right combination was less about what’s popular and more about what was purposeful for our business.
Herby Seedat, BIDTravel
“The challenge is that, alongside latency, connectivity is expensive and there are ongoing concerns around data residency,” says Gerhard Fourie, channel sales manager for SSA and IOI, Nutanix. “Many South African firms are cautious about migrating sensitive workloads due to compliance uncertainty and unpredictable cloud billing models.”
Hybrid solutions have become a popular choice for companies wanting storage that’s not going to demand a complete overhaul of legacy systems, or that fits within tight budgets. Hybrid flash arrays, for example, allow companies to benefit from flash-class performance, but without the need to invest in a complete flash architecture. Hybrid cloud storage blends on-premises with the cloud, giving companies the ability to offload older files while keeping recent or active data local.
“Combining flash and traditional disk, or integrating on-premises systems with cloud storage, gives companies the option to optimise for both performance and cost,” says Dean Wolson, general manager, Lenovo Infrastructure Group. “This flexibility helps manage budgets without compromising on speed. Hybrid is also useful for disaster recovery and business continuity, which are important given South Africa’s power instability and loadshedding challenges.”
Hybrid allows companies to match storage types to different workload needs. Cloud is cost-effective for archiving or burst capacity, while on-prem is critical for resilience, particularly during outages. The ability to combine on-prem and cloud also means companies get more scale without a high upfront investment.
“Hybrid setups aren’t without their challenges,” says Shivaan Nanthlall, security and datacentre architecture lead, Comstor Southern Africa. “Managing multiple environments can reduce complexity, especially in enforcing policies and maintaining consistency. There are security implications – with more integrations and endpoints, comes a larger attack surface. Latency is also an issue, particularly in regions with poor connectivity as accessing cloud resources in realtime can be challenging.”
The best strategy is to not let the business get wedged in a corner with one solution. Hybrid, despite the risks, offers the best mix of cost, resilience and compliance and makes the most sense in the South African context.
MODERNISED AND PRIVATE: THE BIDTRAVEL APPROACH
Herby Seedat, CIO, BIDTravel, says the company assessed its environment in terms of scale, performance demands, security posture and cost considerations. “For us, investing in a modernised private cloud was more commercially viable than moving to the public cloud outright, particularly given our footprint.” BIDTravel started with a clear understanding of its business model, operational priorities and workload requirements. It was important, says Seedat, to align its technology with its strategy and ensure the company’s storage choice supported agility and simplified management. “It also needs to reduce reliance on specialist skills and scale with future needs,” he says. “We opted for a hyperconverged infrastructure with Nutanix as it gave us that flexibility and control. The right combination was less about what’s popular and more about what was purposeful for our business.”
BIDTravel manages its infrastructure on-premises, but uses cloud-like agility, a hybrid approach that gives it control over critical applications while preparing for future cloud adoption.
“The trade-off is complexity,” says Seedat. “You need the right tools and skills to manage both environments. Nutanix helped abstract complexity through unified management, which was important. However, if your internal teams aren’t equipped to handle this dual mode, you can run into integration and security challenges.”
The hyperconverged platform has given BIDTravel greater control, performance consistency and predictable costs, and it has proven easier to align with specific security and compliance requirements.
“The downside is the capital expenditure and the need to maintain hardware, but we’ve mitigated that through smart architecture and simplified management, which now requires fewer resources than before,” says Seedat.
* Article first published on brainstorm.itweb.co.za
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