It is amazing to consider just how dramatically, explosively, and exponentially data has grown over the past decade. Consider the advances in technology over the last 30 years or so. The 80s pioneered the concept of the personal computer and broad deployments of local area networks with distributed file servers, small capacity disk systems, limited content creators, and very limited software capabilities. The 90s introduced pooled storage systems to increase IT efficiency delivered as storage area networks and networked-attached storage appliances. And as we accelerated toward the end of that decade, the Internet started to take shape, opening up all sorts of possibilities and unforeseen investment disasters from the dot-com bubble.

After the turn of the century, mobile computing emerged as a tremendously disruptive technology, increasing the number of access points to information as well as a ground swell of content creators. Every student needed a laptop. Every home had two, or even three computers. Within a few years, everyone also had a mobile device that could download books and music and share hi-res digital pictures and hi-def videos that they uploaded to social networks and stored online. Suddenly there were millions of content creators and nothing ever seemed to get deleted—the data just continued to expand exponentially.

A new culture of digital expectations

What we see today is a culture based on expectations of immediate availability of any kind of information, social media communications, and “anyone can publish stuff” technologies that are creating a data boom that is a bit frightening to consider—or exciting to consider if you are in the storage business.

The last several years of recession have placed an additional burden on IT organizations that now face flat budgets but must continue to support expanding operations. In order to successfully manage this massive data growth with limited resources, organizations of all sizes must view and approach their data storage needs more strategically, considering both immediate and future needs. Although this often requires a greater commitment to a design philosophy at the outset, companies must also have the flexibility to make necessary changes nondisruptively and configure environments with existing resources.

Additionally, organizations must consider the full life cycle of their data. Not only must they store data for immediate use, but they must also consider retention policies, accessibility of data and who may access it (for example, cloud services), backing up and restoring data, and disaster management. Often, companies place too high a priority on the application layer, underemphasizing the importance of the data itself. Although the applications are critical, it is the data that holds the essential value to almost all organizations. It’s the data that will stick around for a lot longer than the applications accessing it. On a personal level, think about all of the digital photos you create and then consider how many new computers you will buy over the next 20 years to view those photos. Data gravity leads to storage. Therefore, a holistic approach that assesses all the applications to see where integration and efficiencies lie will reduce the burden on IT staff and minimize the risks of getting locked into a purchase with a single application.

Out with the old, in with the new

Traditionally, IT organizations deployed storage for each application. A new database would get its own storage. E-mail, another storage system. Web servers, more storage. And on and on. But, over time, that deployment model results in storage islands with stranded capacity or poorly utilized assets. Budgets aren’t friendly to inefficiency, so organizations must architect IT infrastructures designed for the new IT requirements, built on a shared and highly virtualized infrastructure. This new approach introduces not only new efficient technologies, like deduplication, compression, thin provisioning, and cloning, but also unlocks new opportunities for revenue streams not previously tapped.

For enterprise-level businesses and organizations, the past decade of data growth has been intense and disruptive. The ways that businesses capture, track, leverage, and store information have changed immeasurably. Thanks to Moore’s Law, so too have the capacities and capabilities of the systems and other devices now utilized. It is truly a different world. The only thing that has stayed the same—unfortunately—is the siloed, application-specific approach to storage that some organizations continue to employ to manage their data.

With existing IT departments pushed to their limits and budgets flat, companies are fighting a battle they just can’t win. As information increasingly becomes a primary competitive advantage—and many companies’ most valuable asset—data is now so mission critical to such a wide variety of different businesses that it demands an entirely new perspective to manage it effectively.

The explosive growth and increasing importance of data are intensifying the evolution of the relationship between companies and their storage vendors. Though never entirely purely transactional, this partnership is more strategic than ever before, and companies must assess vendors for their ability to develop, deploy, and maintain the ideal strategy and architecture for their needs.

Companies that take the time to diligently plan their data management strategies and carefully assess the vendors with whom they choose to partner will find themselves well positioned to contend with the unrelenting, ongoing growth of their information. And as the breadth and velocity of data growth continue to escalate, many will also soon discover that they enjoy a decided competitive advantage over those companies that failed to adapt to the new reality.