Faster Data Access Still A Priority Post Pandemic

During the pandemic, access to fast, reliable data became a critical issue for organizations of all shapes and sizes, and it looks like that importance is here to stay, as we move to a post-pandemic outlook. 

In Starburst and Red Hat’s annual State of Data white paper, organizations still see access to data as more critical after the recent pandemic. A majority of respondents said access to data was “critical”, with only 19 percent saying that it is less critical. 

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Part of the change in importance is due to organizations collecting and storing more data. In the next 12 months, 65 percent of organization’s surveyed said they plan to add streaming data, and 60 percent aim to add video and event data in that timeframe. 

“Data sprawl is a phenomenon that continues to plague businesses,” said Will Schoeppner, research director at EMA. “Data storage complexity persists as data is held locally on-premises or in multi-cloud storage platforms, and depending on the organization, may be geographically dispersed. This complex, distributed, and dynamic IT environment creates several barriers for businesses to access data that is reliable and fast.”

The average organization currently has between four to six data platforms in their data ecosystem, with 10 percent having ten to twelve data platforms. The average is expected to rise in 2023 and 2024, as organizations continue to add more ways to collect and store data. 

The main reasons for adding more data platforms are customer engagement, real-time changes in risk and employee engagement. In the 2020 white paper, more organizations were worried about real-time market shifts, but this has declined in importance in 2021.

In the past year, there has also been a clear movement towards hybrid interoperability as being more impactful in a businesses buying decisions. In 2020, only 26 percent considered this an impactful factor, in 2021 that shot up to 34 percent. 

Multi-cloud flexibility, ease of use and scalability remained the three most impactful factors in businesses buying decisions for cloud data storage, although all three declined in importance compared to 2020. 

The shift to multi-cloud or hybrid cloud is affecting each region differently. In Europe and Asia Pacific, more organizations consider their architecture strategy to be decentralized, while slightly more in North America consider theirs centralized. In the next 12 months, organizations from all three regions prefer a decentralized strategy. 

“Most organizations have a data architecture strategy centered around a decentralized model,” said  Schoeppner. “EMEA organizations have progressed the most in the decentralized movement; however, countries in North America and APAC are closing the gap and moving to a more decentralized architecture strategy for their data platforms.”