A Different View

According to IDC, file-based data will account for nearly 80 percent of all data within the enterprise by 2012. This seems to point to a very real challenge – how to cost-effectively store and manage such rapid file-based data growth?

Today’s traditional, scale-up solutions were simply not designed to answer this question. And, as of now, none of the major storage players have demonstrated an ability to engineer and bring to market a viable, enterprise-ready, scale-out NAS product. This appears evident when you review the rising cost of OPEX related to enterprise storage management.

Meanwhile, more than 1000 customers across the enterprise, including mainstream industries such as Manufacturing and Pharma, are using Isilon scale-out NAS because the growth of their file-based data had overwhelmed their traditional storage systems and Isilon was clearly the best solution to address their challenges going forward.

More than 250 storage start-ups followed Isilon into the marketplace in 2001. Regardless of market opportunity, this was never going to be sustainable. Today, market forces have winnowed the field down to the companies with the most competitive and value-driven offerings. With file-based data growth showing no signs of slowing, it seems clear the challenges inherent in skyrocketing stores of file-based data are making scale-out solutions more viable in the enterprise than ever before.

Finally, mainstream adoption typically follows “niche” markets who compose the first wave of adoption. Today we are witnessing the next wave, with the greatest uptick in adoption coming from mainstream enterprise businesses experiencing the same file-based data challenges the “niche” markets experienced a few years ago.

- Lucas Welch, Isilon Systems