Mission-critical cloud storage market to double to prime $103 billion by 2028

One other day, one other forecast; this one from Informa-owned analyst firm Omdia, which says world market income from “mission-critical” knowledge centre storage will attain $103 billion by 2028. The projected progress is right down to extra gross sales and better costs, it stated, as digital transformation extends throughout the worldwide economic system, and enterprises search expanded cloud storage and computing to handle firm workloads. 

It’s unclear from the press observe whether or not the market is definitely for “mission-critical” cloud storage within the Trade 4.0 sense, or whether or not it’s merely a evaluation of the cloud storage market at giant, and the time period is getting used to replicate the upper perceived “mission-critical” worth of cloud providers as enterprises stake extra on their digital-change efforts. Both approach, the message is {that a} surge is coming – to the purpose annual gross sales will virtually double.

Income from knowledge centre storage, throughout the edge-cloud continuum, was $53 billion in 2023, which was down 16 p.c on 2022, and can be virtually half of Omdia’s projected 2028 forecast. The 2023 droop was right down to “financial challenges”, forcing “decreased IT spending”. Unique design producers (ODMs) noticed gross sales lower by over 30 p.c in 2023, as knowledge centre gear spending “briefly shifted away from storage”, it stated. 

OEM distributors, targeted on conventional storage, noticed a smaller single-digit year-on-year decline in gross sales. “Cloud storage shipments confronted constraints as cloud service suppliers allotted important parts of their budgets to the acquisition of expensive GPUs,” because the AI bug swept the seller market, famous Omdia. Its forecast, obtainable right here, covers exterior storage income from each arrays and server expansions (see graphic).

It reveals the market was dominated by ODM distributors in 2030, with a 32 p.c share of income volumes. Of OEMs, US-based Dell EMC took a major 20 p.c share, with Huawei in third on seven p.c, NetApp in fourth with 5 p.c, and Lenovo in fifth with 4 p.c. Unnamed “others” held 32 p.c of the market collectively.

However “the storage market” (at giant?) is “poised for a resurgence”, stated a press release, due to “ongoing digital transformation, speedy progress in knowledge volumes, developments in AI, and the pressing want for storage modernization”. It stated: “As industries turn into more and more data-dependent, the storage market’s downturn is more likely to be short-lived. These components will collectively revitalise the storage market, making certain a return to a progress trajectory.”

Dennis Hahn, principal analyst for knowledge storage at Omdia, stated: “Storage and knowledge administration are strategic parts of recent digital enterprises, which is able to guarantee continued long-term investments in storage. Storage distributors have been adjusting their acquisition fashions to be extra cloud-like, adopting a pay-per-use strategy and specializing in total knowledge wants reasonably than simply storage. Ransomware safety and AI-driven knowledge set creation have gotten important options in storage options.”