Given the current rate of technological change, it seems like every other week, there’s a new “hot” technology being introduced that will revolutionize the industry. While some of these gain traction, others depart as fast as they came, barely noticed and quickly forgotten. Currently, one of the hottest and most promising technologies driving digital transformation (DX) is hyper-converged infrastructures (HCI).

In the not-so-distant past, the concept of hyper-converged infrastructures (HCI) did not exist. Fast forward to 2018 and hyper-convergence is now the market’s fastest growing element among all data center technologies. HCI has arrived and it is here to stay.

Have you ever seen Joy of Painting? If not, look it up and watch an episode or two. Bob Ross was a great painter and a calming force, which is impressive given his history as a U.S. Air Force drill sergeant. A recurring component of Ross’ shows and paintings is ‘happy little trees.’ Happy trees has become somewhat of a cottage concept; with memes, tee shirts and more, celebrating the phrase.

IT’s New Frontier

Businesses are embracing digital transformation as they look to the cloud for next-generation data storage. Open industry hardware and software enabling these new virtualized environments have become commoditized, allowing for the displacement of premium-priced proprietary solutions by low-cost, whitebox storage solutions. International Data Corporation

As your customers’ businesses continue to grow and accrue new data, they must also address the need for long-term storage that’s secure and efficient. Many organizations will look to backup certain files, but it’s important to note that backups are ideally used to address short-term (less than 90 day) needs. Backups provide copies of data files in the event of system failures and disasters. Most systems create multiple copies of files, eventually loading the system with duplications of the same files.

As a kid, some of my friends would hide their report cards from their parents when they received a bad grade. Eventually, the parents would realize they hadn’t seen the quarter’s progress report and looked into why. When they found out, they’d be doubly upset. Not only was there a bad grade, but their kid had try to hide the result. So, as my friends contemplated their mistake from the confines of their rooms, they learned, you can run, but you can’t hide. This also holds true in governmental practice as well. In the federal government, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) is that parent and they’re monitoring the progress. The GAO evaluates how well the government is performing on modernizing its IT infrastructure using, you guessed it, a report card.

When creating a data protection, backup and recovery strategy, healthcare organizations have an additional layer of complexity to consider – critical system availability. Critical system availability prioritizes the availability of systems, in order of importance, during emergency situations by articulating which ones need to be re-established first, second and third, to ensure the least downtime for patient safety and uninterrupted quality of care.

Technology is constantly evolving. Cell phones that once looked like radios—too large for real portability—now fit in your pocket. Today, technology is all about speed and an endless array of functionality. For years, early adopters defined the market while the government traditionally lagged behind in adopting new technologies. Well, things are changing. New legislation is driving an atmosphere of ‘tech forward’ throughout the public sector.

Specialized knowledge is becoming one of the most requested services for channel partners to provide to end customers. Sergio Farache, senior vice president of global cloud solutions recently shared his thoughts on why technology channel partners and ISVs should establish specialized solution practices to understand and serve the unique complexities of their customers’ technology deployments.

Did you know the All-Flash Array (AFA) market is one of the fastest-growing sub-segments of the overall enterprise storage space, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.4 percent through 2020?¹  What’s most intriguing is how AFAs help align organizations into the 3rd platform (cloud, mobile, big data and analytics), which IDC predicts will account for 95 percent of IT expenditure by 2020.¹