Data Storage, a Building Block for Innovation

Over the last 20 years we have experienced a rate of technological change unparalleled in human history. This incredible pace of life altering innovation is built on the open and unfettered access to core technologies: computing power, open source software, power, bandwidth and data storage. Without access to the innovations in these areas, advances such as the cloud and web services are impossible or at the very least not scalable.

We’ll take a look at data storage as one of the key components of innovation. In a world of “Big Data”, what would be the impact if storage costs were 10 times as expensive? 100 times? What data would you sacrifice? What insights into your business would you lose?

Storage densities have risen exponentially, yet some vendors limit access through proprietary or closed systems. This drives up the cost of storage prohibiting organizations from taking advantage of “Big Data”. We’ll show you how to take commercial, off-the-shelf components and build your own storage servers. We’ll back that up with a case study where 25 Petabytes of data is stored and managed at a one-tenth the cost of proprietary systems. We’ll close with an examination of where storage innovation and open access can take us in the next few years.