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It would be a cop-out to not address my predictions from last year, so let's take a look and see how I did on my 2002 predictions:
1. Long-haul optical transport common between data centers
While this sector did grow, it was not in the way I'd expected. Growth was due to the lower cost of network infrastructure and DR considerations that rose to the top of IT concerns after auditing environments in light of recent events. In the end, the constraints of IT budgets caused continued growth to be minimal.
2. Storage utility will gain ground
The storage utility failed as an SSP outsource model, but still continues to gain ground within larger IT organizations. However, due to the complexity of creating a multiple-tiered, service-level centric storage model, this has moved slower than I would have expected. Some have tried and are still trying.
3. Self-managing storage
With caveat that I made last year that this was a bit of a way out, we are seeing the first steps toward autonomous self-managed systems. At every point within the data path, this is happening. Host software is incorporating management tools. Standard libraries for HBAs are maturing. Management and availability options are being added at the fabric layer. And finally, vendors and third parties are supplying automation software of various types and favors. While still being a distant goal, the steps are being made to continue down this road.
How close was I? I'll leave that up to you to decide. Let's just say there is room for improvement.
Click here for Part 2
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