2021 was quite a year for enterprise IT. Yes, COVID-19 continued to impact the supply of data center hardware, while confidence in cloud security took a hit. However, the year saw real progress. Innovation in storage technology—not least in the form of 20TB HDDs—accelerated, cloud adoption showed no sign of slowing, and the edge went mainstream.
As the year closes, there’s much to anticipate in the months ahead. Continued innovation in HDD storage. Bold partnerships between the cloud giants and telcos as 5G adoption ramps. And some daunting security challenges along the way. Here are four of the factors that will influence the shape of enterprise IT for 2022.
1. Race to 30TB
20TB HDDs were a long time coming. While Western Digital got there first in 2020, 2021 has seen WD and Seagate pitting 20TB drives against each other. And while 20TB was a real milestone, there’s been no time for manufacturers to rest on their laurels—we’re already onward to talk of 30TB.
Seagate
With its HAMR (Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording) technology, Seagate is playing the long game. While the only 20TB drive it currently mass produces uses conventional PMR technology, the firm has shipped samples of a 20TB drive utilizing HAMR.
To hear them tell it, the firm’s HAMR strategy is poised to pay off handsomely. Seagate is confidently projecting ambitious capacity goals一a 50TB drive by 2025, and a 100TB drive by at least 2030. Its 30TB drives, using Gen-2 HAMR technology, will probably arrive around 2023-24.
All said, Seagate has been relatively coy in recent times about its HAMR research一an update here, a sample there. Hopefully 2022 will see the release of further details concerning the technology in which it’s so heavily invested.
Western Digital
With the innovative OptiNAND technology under its belt, WD has laid out its roadmap to 30TB. As a next step, it expects to release a 22TB drive in 2022 by carefully squeezing yet another platter into its drives, for a total of 10.
Although CEO David Goeckeler acknowledges Western Digital will need to employ HAMR to get beyond 30TB, WD knows it has a good thing going with OptiNAND for now. The firm currently plans to reach 30TB through the use of OptiNAND and ePMR alone.
Toshiba
Toshiba has not yet produced a 20TB drive, focusing instead on its MAMR (Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording) equipped 18TB drives.
Indeed, it seems Toshiba has firmly taken up the MAMR mantle from Western Digital, former cheerleaders for the technology. The path to take Toshiba to 30TB is MAS-MAMR (Microwave Assisted Switching MAMR), a beefed-up version of MAMR co-developed by Toshiba, TDK, and Showa Denko.
The timeline is currently obscure, but we’re hopeful 2022 will see announcements of more concrete goals and dates for higher capacity MAMR drives.
2. Partnerships Aplenty
We believe 2022 will reveal a marked consolidation and systemization of tech infrastructure. While 2021 saw the announcement of some notable partnerships, we expect that these tie-ups will begin to bear fruit.
On the Edge: The Cloud meets Telecom
Have you heard? 5G is here! Now that the digital infrastructure is rolling out in earnest, cloud companies are actively working to put it to good use. To do so, they’re partnering directly with telecom companies.
AWS offers “wavelength zones”, areas that allow for ultra-low latency computing operations on 5G devices. To deliver these zones, it’s teaming up with Verizon’s 5G Edge.
Similarly, Microsoft is partnering with AT&T to increase availability of its Azure Edge Zones. Again, low-latency in 5G apps is the name of the game.
Meanwhile, Google is working with AT&T to offer everything from video analytics to smart factories at the edge.
3. Cloud Security under Fire
When an agency wishes to migrate its operations to the cloud for efficiency or security, cloud companies are close at hand to assist.
Call them Agent M: Microsoft is partnering with the U.S. Navy as the latter embarks on a massive cloud migration to the Azure-based “Flank Speed M356”. Her Majesty wants in too: The UK’s HM Revenue and Customs has signed a deal to migrate to the cloud over the course of a year.
As governments the world over become increasingly concerned with security, many see cloud migration and the shuttering of local data centers as a solution. Expect to see this trend pick up in the new year.
Breaches on the Rise
Why are governments and businesses still moving en masse to the cloud? For many reasons, chief among them efficiency.
But security plays a role as well. Organizations don’t feel as confident as they once did in the safety of on-premise data centers. And no wonder: hacking is on the rise.
A security study by Coro, focusing on mid-sized businesses, found that such firms were an astonishing 490% more likely to experience a security breach by the end of 2021 than they were in 2019. Cybercriminals are also increasing in sophistication, as the proportion of targeted attacks increases.
So, if you’re a mid-sized business with a traditional data center worrying about getting hacked, just move to the cloud. Surely they’ve got security under control, right?
Cloud Security Vulnerabilities
Maybe not. 2021 saw a worrying amount of vulnerabilities in major cloud services.
In August, security company Wiz helpfully informed Microsoft that a flaw in its database product left 3,300 Azure customers (including Coca Cola, Liberty Mutual, and ExxonMobil) open to unrestricted access.
Another intrepid security firm, Ermetic, found a vulnerability in AWS’s “S3 Buckets,” its scalable storage service which allows one to block public access at the account level. Ermetic showed that lapses in entitlement management can render S3 buckets open to attack. According to its research, such lapses are “extremely common”一up to 90% of S3 buckets are vulnerable.
Log4Shell
And those are just vulnerabilities in specific cloud services. The tech world is still reeling from the discovery of Log4Shell. This is an unprecedented vulnerability in Log4j, a common open-source logging tool. Those potentially affected include tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, and Twitter.
If exploited, Log4Shell allows easy and unfettered access to internal networks. The vulnerability can be patched, but given the sheer number of third-party apps affected, it’s likely some will fail to do so in time.
Here is 2022’s daunting security dilemma in a nutshell. Just when everyone is moving to the cloud, in part due to security concerns, the cloud is proving more vulnerable than expected.
4. Explosive IT Growth
Security concerns aside, prospects for 2022 remain bright. Here are some projections of growth in key areas.
- Data: IDC estimates that the global datasphere will grow at a CAGR of 23% through 2025, with IoT the fastest growing segment. Amazingly, the IoT market is projected to grow with a CAGR of 25.4% from $381.30 billion in 2021 to $1,854.76 billion in 2028. This is even with the chip shortage impeding IoT market growth by 10-15%.
- Cloud: Gartner predicts that cloud end-user spending will grow at a CAGR of 19.6%, a slightly lower rate of growth than the 23.1% from 2020-21.
- 5G: 2022 promises to be a watershed year for 5G: 47.5% of new mobile devices will be 5G enabled. That’s a whopping 660 million 5G gadgets out of the total 1.39 billion mobile devices projected to be sold.
Opportunities and Challenges Ahead
It’s been a difficult year in many respects. But progress was evident, as the economy gradually reopened. With any luck, 2022 will be better yet一more growth, more innovation, and more streamlined digital infrastructure.
As always, the new year comes with a unique combination of opportunity and challenge. The specifics of how it will unfold are difficult to foretell. One thing is for certain: it’s bound to be interesting.
For global support with the procurement and replacement of your data center hardware, get in touch with Horizon Technology’s expert team of ITAD specialists.
