| | January 20158CIOReviewHow the Software Defined Storage Movement Is Transforming ITaaSBy James Hanley, VP & GM, Platforms and Data Centers, CSCThe dramatic move and adoption of the 3rd Platform is driving the next phase of the IT revolution. Along with the commoditization of hardware, faster connectivity, and the continued rise of 3rd Platform technologies such as cloud, big data, mobile, and social--there's a greater need for IT to adapt to these rapidly changing paradigm shifts while delivering IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS).We are now truly experiencing the post PC era with the realization of a data-centric world. Data is growing at unprecedented levels never seen before, and in many cases much faster than the IT staff and resources assigned to manage it. This presents a host of problems for the enter-prise but it's more than just data growth that is driving IT's need to transform.The explosion of mobile devices, ubiquitous connectivity and instant access to cloud ap-plications make it easier for end users to create and consume a torrent of content, upwards of 90 percent of which is unstructured data. Much of this data is end-user generated, yet 80 percent of that will be managed by IT at some point in its lifecycle.This puts even greater demands on enterprise IT to store massive amounts of content accessible to these new 3rd Platform technologies. IT is undergoing a transformation to become more agile and adaptive ­ and data storage is at the center of that transformation.Enter the Software-Defined Storage MovementThe benefits of cloud computing are well documented with the move-ment to a more agile IT infrastructure. The commoditization of hard-ware resources along with cheaper processing and capacity has led to a more software-centric approach. Software-based solutions are now entering the storage and networking domains leading to an era of the software-defined en-terprise in which not only the applications are impacted but also the infrastructure opti-mized to run these mission-critical applica-tions.The market is seeing a rapid change in storage environments supporting this data-centric world of enterprise IT. Until now, most data storage resided in a physical world. As enterprise Storage Area Networks (SANs) became an alternative for Direct-in myopinion
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