GigaOm Key Criteria for Evaluating Scale-Out Storage Solutionsv5.0

1. Executive Summary

The digital universe is expanding at an astonishing pace and, with it, the volume of unstructured data that organizations must manage and harness. From scientific research to media production, from healthcare records to financial transactions, unstructured data fuels innovation and drives business value. Scale-out storage has emerged as the linchpin of modern data infrastructure, providing the flexibility, scalability, and performance required to address the challenges of this data deluge.

Traditional storage architectures, with their inherent limitations in terms of capacity and performance, are ill-equipped to handle the exponential growth of unstructured data. Scale-out storage, in contrast, allows organizations to seamlessly add storage nodes as needed, expanding capacity and performance in lockstep with data growth. This ensures that data remains readily accessible and available, even as it reaches petabyte or exabyte scale.

Scale-out storage is not merely about capacity. It’s about empowering organizations to extract maximum value from their data. By leveraging advanced technologies like object storage, distributed file systems, and software-defined storage, scale-out solutions enable efficient data management, streamlined workflows, and improved collaboration.

Any organization grappling with the challenges of managing large volumes of unstructured data stands to benefit from scale-out storage. This includes industries such as media and entertainment, healthcare, life sciences, financial services, government, and education. From high-performance computing clusters to cloud-native applications, scale-out storage is a versatile solution that can be tailored to meet diverse needs.

Business Imperative
For C-level executives, scale-out storage is a strategic imperative. The ability to manage and leverage data effectively is a key competitive differentiator in today’s data-driven economy. Scale-out storage enables organizations to unlock new business opportunities, accelerate innovation, and improve operational efficiency.

The scale-out storage landscape is constantly evolving, with vendors pushing the boundaries of innovation. As organizations continue to grapple with the challenges of data growth, complexity, and security, scale-out storage will play an increasingly critical role in ensuring data accessibility, resilience, and value. This report delves into the key criteria for evaluating scale-out storage solutions, empowering IT leaders to make informed decisions that align with their organization’s unique needs and long-term data management strategies.

Sector Adoption Score
To help executives and decision-makers assess the potential impact and value of a scale-out storage solution deployment to the business, this GigaOm Key Criteria report provides a structured assessment of the sector across five factors: benefit, maturity, urgency, impact, and effort. By scoring each factor based on how strongly it compels or deters adoption of a scale-out storage solution, we provide an overall Sector Adoption Score (Figure 1) of 4.3 out of 5, with 5 indicating the strongest possible recommendation to adopt. This indicates that a scale-out storage solution is a credible candidate for deployment and worthy of thoughtful consideration.

The factors contributing to the Sector Adoption Score for scale-out storage are explained in more detail in the Sector Brief section that follows.

Figure 1. Sector Adoption Score for Scale-Out Storage

This is the fifth year that GigaOm has reported on the scale-out storage space in the context of our Key Criteria and Radar reports. This report builds on our previous analysis and considers how the market has evolved over the last year.

This GigaOm Key Criteria report highlights the capabilities (table stakes, key features, and emerging features) and nonfunctional requirements (business criteria) for selecting an effective scale-out storage solution. The companion GigaOm Radar report identifies vendors and products that excel in those decision criteria. Together, these reports provide an overview of the market, identify leading scale-out storage offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.