Storage 3.0 is coming

According to IDC, the next-wave storage trend relies on the premise that storage systems will be built on increasingly standardised hardware components, and that those storage systems will be policy-driven, services-oriented and object-centric, says Tech Target.

The Storage 3.0 wave is fuelled in part by the Web 2.0 phenomenon. A few weeks after IDC released its 2008 Top 10 storage predictions report, EMC introduced Fortress, its new SaaS infrastructure aimed at helping the company deliver online service. This announcement was right in line with IDC's number one prediction that online storage services will be viewed as a viable option.

One way to consider the Storage 3.0 revolution is to focus on tighter integration between all those new applications and storage systems, says Benjamin Woo, VP of enterprise storage systems at IDC.

Dutch researcher Alexander le F`ebre has demonstrated that a field-emission current signal can be used to arrange the position of thousands of nanometre-sharp needles, says Science Daily.

These probes can be applied to write and read in new storage media with an extremely high density, using bits on a nanometre scale.

Research into a memory based on probes is being carried out at the University of Twente's Mesa research institute. Being able to control the position of each separate probe is essential for realising a system with extremely high densities.

IBM outperformed storage software vendor EMC in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to new revenue share data released by IDC, says CNN Money.

IBM grew storage software revenue 16% year-over-year, more than three times the growth rate of EMC.

According to the IDC report, IBM marked a dozen consecutive quarters of surpassing the overall storage software segment, which was measured at 11% year-over-year growth.