Summary

Storing data is key to Inescapable Data (until some magic occurs that allows data to be always in flight yet locatable). As such, it becomes increasingly important to protect data against loss or destruction, because this data will be our keys to analysis, correlation, and general utility in our lives. The current paradigm for protecting data (which could arguably be stated as a no paradigm) is insufficient for the new world of rapidly changing data. The industry will likely embrace the notion of continuous real-time and redundant protection. In a related way, we may find our machines and ourselves storing nearly all data nearly forever because key values come from historical analysis. Video streams from surveillance sources and general consumer movies (and caching) will drive dramatic increases in disk utilization and become our premiere data creator. Finally, we are discovering that the fundamental units of storage, blocks and files, are not adequate to truly enable the efficiencies expected in an Inescapable Data world where businesses desire to focus only on value-add operational tasks. The future will offer us concepts larger than files that will allow for intelligent protection, caching, and outsourcing to finally realize Inescapable Data goals for computer data operations.