Storage market in South Asia and Middle East plodding on

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 14 August 2009, 14:34 IST
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Bangalore: There has been a spurt in the emerging storage technologies market in South Asia and the Middle East (SAME), driven by a boom in data growth as well as enterprises need for business continuity, disaster recovery solutions and regulatory compliance. A news analysis from Frost & Sullivan on Emerging Storage Technologies and Adoption in South Asia and Middle East, reveals that this market has been relatively insulated from the current economic downturn as businesses are increasingly focusing on gaining an edge by reducing operational risks and there have been substantial advances in data storage to supply the demand for better data management and recovery. In fact, the market in India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Sri Lanka earned revenues of $653.4 million in 2008, and it is estimated to reach $2146.4 million in 2015. The external storage market has been picking up pace over the years as enterprises are either investing in in-house storage solutions or are outsourcing their data backup needs, as they look to improve their ability to recover from any disaster at the earliest to establish business continuity. Saumya Upadhyaya, Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst says, "Network storage helps data centers achieve consolidation, resulting in better utilization, optimization of resources and lowered total cost of ownership (TCO). Enterprises can also utilize their resources better due to the shared network space between applications." Within network storage, storage area network (SAN) is the most popular due to its performance benefits in mission critical applications. Network attached storage (NAS) is the solution of choice among customers with specific file-serving requirements. However, due to cautious IT spending in the current circumstances, storage solutions have lost some traction in the first half of 2009, compared to previous years. In addition, the rapid adoption of storage technologies in the last few years may create a lull in the market. The use of virtualization solutions to increase utilization of existing storage devices is also a threat to the growth of storage hardware market. Market participants also have to battle customer perceptions about the complexity and high initial costs of migrating and managing a networked solution. Storage solution vendors hope that the market will take a turn for the better by 2010, with costs lowering and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) latching onto the opportunity to equip themselves with storage solutions. Vendors are training channel partners to step up customer education efforts among the stakeholders and make them aware of the technological and financial benefits of their solutions. These strategies are paying off, with several new end users investing in network storage solutions. "Apart from the traditional high IT spenders such as telecom, banking, financial services, insurance (BFSI), and IT/IT-enabled services (ITeS), increasing data needs in sectors such as healthcare and media are showing robust growth potential," notes Upadhyaya. "In addition, increasing IT adoption initiatives by sectors such as government, retail, and infrastructure are driving demand."

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