Security, cost attention mark new era of storage modernization
According to recent research, enterprises are prioritizing cybersecurity and cost management. Storage vendors such as NetApp are making these elements a focal point of products.
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Published: 24 Feb 2025
The latest "Technology Spending Intentions Survey" of IT decision-makers has many significant findings. A standout is the extent to which IT buyers will focus their investments on two aspects over the coming year: strengthening their cybersecurity and driving cost savings.
AI understandably enjoys much of the limelight -- and to be fair, it's also recognized in the research as a key investment area for 2025. However, the survey from Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia, serves as a good reminder that IT organizations still face substantial challenges beyond the AI domain that will dominate strategies this year and beyond.
The scale and extent of the IT security challenge is well documented -- with ESG research showing that ransomware alone is perceived as a top five existential threat by almost 90% of respondents. And though cost containment has always been a top-of-mind concern for many, there seems to be a renewed level of focus by IT organizations to get a better handle on costs.
Complexity is a particular culprit that acts as a drain on resources, introduces risk and inhibits innovation. Six in 10 respondents to the latest research said their IT environment had become more complex in the past two years, with one in five saying this complexity had increased substantially.
NetApp makes push to ease complexity, cost
With these issues in mind, some of the recent announcements by industry suppliers have been notable. One example that stood out was from NetApp. The company -- best known for its enterprise file storage systems -- has been making a substantial push into dedicated block storage over the last year or so, and has doubled down with its latest set of updates.
Why is this significant? Despite the many improvements in enterprise storage functionality over the last decade or more, our research indicates that core enterprise storage systems -- the block-based SANs that underpin transactional and other business-critical applications -- still present challenges.
The growing attention from all players here is a good thing that will ultimately benefit customers looking to modernize their block storage to meet the realities of an ever-demanding environment.
As well as performance and usability issues, the top reported challenge was around lack of integration with the broader IT environment. In other words, much existing block storage is still too difficult to use and is still too much of a silo. These issues compound complexity, which translate into higher costs.
NetApp's All-Flash SAN Array family of block-optimized storage systems has been designed with these challenges in mind, offering a compelling package that delivers the holy trinity of enterprise-class performance and features, ease-of-use and cost-effectiveness with no trade-offs. The product line has now been extended downstream with new entry-level and midrange options via the A-Series.
This is a very competitive part of the industry, and NetApp faces stiff competition from the likes of Pure Storage, Dell and HPE. The growing attention from all players here is a good thing that will ultimately benefit customers looking to modernize their block storage to meet the realities of an ever-demanding environment.
Cybersecurity key for storage
Customers also stand to benefit from NetApp's continued focus on increased cybersecurity protections. Until recently, organizations relied chiefly on their backup data copies to recover from a ransomware attack. Though this is still important, efforts are now extending to detecting and then minimizing the damage a ransomware attack can cause.
This brings front line, primary storage systems into the picture. NetApp has been a pioneer here with its Autonomous Ransomware Protection (ARP) capability, which uses AI to detect and flag a ransomware attack on OnTap-based data in real time.
NetApp says it is now planning to extend ARP from file data to block-based workloads and VMs later this year. A new ransomware detection program will see NetApp provide data recovery assistance at no charge if a customer suffers from certain ransomware attacks that evade detection by ARP.
NetApp is by no means the only player focusing on improved security detection and protections, but its investments here will help storage teams play their part in protecting their organizations from attack. This is important because enterprise security is also now a team sport.
As custodians of an organization's most important assets -- its data -- enterprise storage teams have a critical role to play in an organization's overall cyber-resilience strategy. As the threat environment continues to evolve, and as organizations look to reduce complexity and manage costs across this entire environment, the importance of modern, feature-rich, cost-effective and simple storage platforms is only going to increase.
Simon Robinson is principal analyst covering infrastructure at Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia.
Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia, is a division of Informa TechTarget. Its analysts have business relationships with technology vendors.
