EMC Survey: One in Two CIOs in India Plan to Move to an All-Flash Data Center by 2020

One in two CIOs surveyed in the ‘Flash Adoption Study’ plan to move to an all-flash datacenter by 2020.

EMC Corporation has today announced the findings of EMC-sponsored research from Frost and Frost & Sullivan revealing that all-flash storage is rapidly becoming the storage technology of choice for CIOs in India. One in two CIOs surveyed in the ‘Flash Adoption Study’ plan to move to an all-flash datacenter by 2020. This highlights the readiness of enterprises today to accept flash into their IT infrastructure in order to boost agility and mobility against the backdrop of an increasingly complex business landscape.

The study shows aggressive evaluation of flash over the last two years and reveals a commitment to making a positive shift towards flash. In fact, 70 percent of enterprises in India expect to have an all-flash storage infrastructure to support most business critical applications by 2020.

Benoy CS, Research Director, Digital Transformation, Frost & Sullivan said, "Flash storage is fast becoming the choice for CIOs in India. New age organizations are constantly upgrading their systems to suit the SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) paradigm. With data being the center for improving efficiency, developing new business models and enhancing customer experience, a flexible storage infrastructure with high quality of service (QoS), that can ensure business continuity, compliance, and data protection, is the need of the hour. Flash resonates with performance, resilience, and agility- highly crucial factors for the success of any digital enterprise today."

The primary goal of all-flash deployment by technology heads and CIOs in India surveyed is operational efficiency; 39 percent of the respondents highlighted it as the number one factor that determines their technology investment and usage. Speed and agility are critical for the enterprise today as they have strong implications for revenue growth and profitability. A millisecond delay in application response can lead to delay in sales, loss in brand equity, and even churn to competitors. The requirements of new business models and customer experience are highly fluid; hence, CIOs have to be armed with solutions that are easy to manage, and promise 24/7 responsiveness.

According to Srihari Palangala, Director and Head of Marketing at EMC, "In today’s business environment, executives face an unprecedented level of complexity. On top of this, the pressure to produce faster and innovate quicker is increasing. Access to real-time analytics with quicker decision support and real-time development is key, making AFA one of the fastest growing segments. In fact, customers of our AFA Solution, XtremIO, are dramatically reducing development time and driving down costs, achieving the agility they need to remain competitive."

70 percent of organizations surveyed stated that flash delivers performance and agility, with the majority of these enterprises currently using flash technology to support their mission critical databases including Oracle- or SAP-based business applications (43 percent); Virtualized servers (35 percent), and business intelligence and analytics (24 percent). As technologies such as IoT become more pervasive compounding the explosion of data, flash storage is expected to be more-widely adopted for business intelligence and analytics.

Methodology

The research was conducted by Frost & Sullivan on behalf of EMC. Frost & Sullivan spoke with 46 CIOs and technology heads from mid-size to large enterprises in nine industries to determine the top business goals that drive decisions around digital transformation and technology, the adoption of flash storage, its perceived benefits, and their road map for flash-based application until 2020. The research analysis is based on findings from an objective questionnaire as well as in-depth interviews on the adoption levels of flash and the trends regarding the same in India.