Hitachi unit outlines IT trends in the region

First, “big data” analytics will go beyond the proof-of-concept phase and into production in established markets.

Second, as the cloud-broker model gains traction in this region, organisations will transform their IT departments from technology implementers to business innovators. 

Third, concerns over data security will reach a tipping point, not only for the mobile data that moves between devices and the cloud, but also for data in content repositories.

Fourth, the Asia-Pacific region will witness an explosion of unstructured data from mobile communications.

And finally, competition between different countries and regions to become the digital hub of Asia will enter a critical stage this year. 

“Big data, cloud, and data encryption are some of the hottest global IT trends,” De Luca said. “As a region, Asia-Pacific has its own unique economic and infrastructure conditions. We believe these wider technology trends will combine with local business drivers to shape the IT and storage landscape in this region in 2014.” 

 

Big-data analytics 

Enterprises will have to find ways to uncover value from within their existing data stores and deploy scalable infrastructures to extract meaningful outcomes from big data projects. 

According to a recent Economist Intelligence Unit “Asia-Pacific Big Data Survey”, sponsored by HDS, more than 70 per cent of organisations in the region believe adopting big data will improve their profitability, productivity, and innovation. 

However, many organisations find that their existing information systems hinder the effective gathering of data for analysis, as the information is stored and managed in separate business systems, “information silos”, formats and media. The big-data challenge comes in two forms: technology and organisation. 

This year, companies will try to address both.

 

Cloud-broker model 

Organisations will transform their IT departments into business innovators. Enterprises with high-demand IT infrastructure and application services will start exploring the cloud-broker model, preferring to work with providers that act as vendor-neutral third-party cloud-services brokerages.

When it comes time to refresh technology, the focus will be on applications and business outcomes rather than the infrastructure itself. Enterprises will start turning to their system integrators, internal IT organisations, or third-party service providers to play the role of cloud-service broker. 

 

Data security 

Across the region, new legislation is being introduced to protect personal data. Organisations will have to re-examine their security policies and look to solutions such as enterprise file sync and share, data encryption, and auditability to address these issues.

Organisations will increase their emphasis on mobile and edge security, and will implement stricter security and data-management practices. They will have to use modern technologies to manage and automate these processes; otherwise the cost of compliance could be very high.

 

Unstructured data

Telecom operators in the Asia-Pacific region will need to deploy sophisticated data-management solutions to address needs for both content delivery and data analysis. Those that do will gain a competitive advantage in the long term.

The roll-out of fourth-generation wireless broadband and the affordability of smartphones have tremendous implications for the growth of mobile data in the region. To manage the growing volume of digital content services to consumers, telecom operators will need to develop a scalable, high-performance and reliable IT infrastructure architecture that incorporates flash-based storage and intelligent content-delivery networks to meet these high-bandwidth requirements.

 

Digital-hub rivalry 

The data-centre industry will continue to grow as countries in the region compete to become the digital hub of Asia. Service providers will invest in state-of-the-art facilities and advanced infrastructure to differentiate their services.  

Organisations use cloud deployments as an opportunity to transform their legacy IT to new consumption-based IT models. Many will start with the deployment of on-premise private clouds. Other organisations that are more advanced in their use of the cloud will begin to move their enterprise applications off premises to cloud service providers, together with on-premise converged platforms.