What's Hot in 2003

Dec. 31, 1554. As he begins to write the prophecies that will eventually make him famous, the great Nostradamus experiences a remarkable event: a visitation from the Virgin Mary. During this sighting -- so the story goes -- Mary grants the bearded soothsayer a vision of the future.

Well, you won't believe it, but over at the Byte and Switch bungalow this New Year's Eve, we too had a visitation. Not from the Virgin Mary, but from the God of Storage, who granted us a rare glimpse of the storage networking market in 2003! [Ed. note: That wasn't all we caught a glimpse of. No offense, Big G, but the pink slippers really clashed with the orange dress.]

But back to subject at hand. It might come as shock to some of you, but storage over IP wasn't on our visitor's list of Top Ten trends for next year. Not that it won't happen, he boomed -- just that he can't bring himself to talk about it anymore until it actually does. Fair enough. We won't mention it again [ed. note: not in this article, anyway].

Herewith, the God of Storage's pronouncements for the year:

No. 10: Storage Security Gets SwallowedNetwork security issues continue to be a priority in 2003, and some vendors will try to create a separate market for network storage security. However, this technology eventually will get baked into other products.

No. 9: The Common Information Model (CIM) Exposed

Vendors talk the hind legs off a donkey about how they plan to support the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) management standards, which probably will not mature until at least 2004, if they ever do. Then, even when they're fully developed, they are likely to address a relatively low level of management functionality, forcing most vendors to continue swapping APIs and writing most of the functionality themselves anyway. Was it worth it?

No. 8: Global Namespaces Get Recognized

IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) is one of the biggest advocates of the concept of global namespaces -- software that creates an abstraction layer between users and their storage, hiding the location and complexity involved in managing storage resources. Sounds a lot like virtualization, doesn't it? That's because it is -- but it works at the file level, rather than the block level. Confused? We'll see how well the vendors do at explaining this one. Either way, expect to hear more about it in '03.No. 7: The SAN... It's... It's Thinking

There will be considerable debate about where storage "intelligence" should reside, i.e., where the data-movement controls live. The options include the storage array, the network, or the host. The answer is: probably all of these places, depending on a given environment. But beware of the biases of each vendor, depending on what they are selling. Another big theme in 2003 will be software tools that help customers consolidate their storage management applications under a single platform. Big G reckons auto-provisioning of storage capacity through policies will be a huge theme on the marketing front. But no one will deploy this ability in a meaningful way until 2004.

No. 6: Utility Storage Powers Up

As IT budgets remain tight, turning the storage infrastructure into an on-demand resource will be an important theme in 2003. Paying for storage on an as-needed basis should help IT managers keep a lid on costs. But will it become the paradigm? (The God of Storage smacks himself on the forehead after "paradigm" inadvertently slips off his tongue.)

No. 5: SAN/NAS Convergence Mix-UpThe most popular way to converge the two types of storage networks in 2003 will be to put in a NAS gateway, or head, that provides file access into data managed within a SAN. Nevertheless, confusion over when to deploy NAS or SAN will continue.

No. 4: Disk-Based Backup Gets Support

It's cheap, it's fast, it's instantly available. What's not to like? Big G says the low cost of tape will make it still the preferred option for many companies, but disk-based backup systems will nevertheless gain important ground this year.

No. 3: M&A Mania

Cash-rich public companies will suck up many of the best storage networking startups this year, a trend that began in 2002 with Sun Microsystems Inc.'s (Nasdaq: SUNW) acquisition of Pirus and Brocade Communications Systems Inc.'s (Nasdaq: BRCD) acquisition of Rhapsody. Believe it or not, there will also be a couple of IPOs this year. BlueArc Corp., maybe? The God of Storage has no comment. He says the SEC's Regulation FD (full disclosure) applies to him, too, and requests we stop asking him difficult questions or he won't show us the No. 1 and No. 2 hot topics for next year. (Byte and Switch editors relent.)No. 2: Microsoft Moves In

Our visitor says Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) has a 200-strong team of programmers adding data-protection features to the .NET server to take out Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP). Good ol' Microsoft. What was that court case about, again? Anyway, Microsoft is clearly worth paying attention to. IDC figures show Microsoft-powered storage products accounted for one third of the market as of mid-2002. Eeek!

No. 1: Cisco Crashes FC Party

Disrupting the game as expected, Cisco Systems Inc.'s (Nasdaq: CSCO) Fibre Channel switches make good headway in 2003. Differentiated features such as VSANs, multiprotocol support, port-level intelligence, and tie-ins with Cisco's management software perspective make the Andiamo boxes an appealing option for new SAN adopters used to Ethernet networking. But Cisco's ability to focus and execute in this market has yet to be proven. This year will be the test.

Before we could ask the All Knowing One about our own prospects for '03, he vanished into thin air. Rats! Perhaps he'll come back in the summer for our next birthday, and in a better dress this time.The Editors, Byte and Switch