Technology & IT | Monday 27 April, 2015 3:32 pm |

Middle East companies will need to work more closely with trusted advisers to prepare for the explosion of data generated by the Internet of Things and the increasing complexity of their storage needs, according to one of the region’s leading storage and data protection companies, Condo Protego.

According to global market intelligence provider International Data Corporation, the total value of the Internet of Things market across the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMA) region will exceed USD 50 billion by 2018, with approximately two billion autonomous objects or things, connected to networks.

As the number of connected devices continues to soar, the volumes of data being collected will rise exponentially, leaving traditional storage systems at risk of being overloaded. By 2020, the digital universe – the total volume of data created and copied annually – will have rocketed from 4.4 trillion gigabytes in 2013 to a staggering 44 trillion gigabytes.
Traditional storage methods will not be able to keep pace with this growth in data and won’t be able to handle the growing complexity of companies’ storage needs as they are forced to store and retain data from a wide range of sources, with enormous variances in how it is used, says Condo Protego.
“The Internet of Things is quite simply changing the game for data storage,” said Andrew Calthorpe, CEO, Condo Protego. “Companies will need to make sure they have the correct storage strategies in place now, because they will be overwhelmed in the next few years if they don’t.”

Connected machine-to-machine communication is already widely used across industries, such as automotive, agriculture, energy, healthcare, logistics, and manufacturing, as well as in the consumer sector, including areas such as connected home appliances – be it refrigerators and air-conditioning units.
The nature and type of data being collected is presenting new challenges for organizations – for instance, a connected device in a refrigerator may monitor energy usage and shopping habits, but it could also generate personal information about an individual’s health or lifestyle, creating regulatory and governance headaches.
And while data from a roadside sensor that is used to provide information about parking slots available will need to be actionable in real-time, that same sensor may collect information about air contamination that will need to be archived, again making storage needs more complex.

“Storage architectures will need to become much more dynamic and able to respond rapidly to business requirements,” said Calthorpe. “We are already seeing companies in the Middle East adopting new strategies, such as taking a software-defined data center approach to storage, and virtualizing infrastructure needs.”
Also, while the volume of data is growing at staggering rates, the IT industry is already struggling with a global shortage of skilled IT staff. While the average IT professional was looking after 230GB of data in 2014, by 2020, they will have to handle 1,231GB of data, according to IDC, so companies will be fighting to attract and retain workers with the right skill sets.

Condo Protego provides quality consultation services for its clients, working closely with an organization to determine business needs, before implementing a solution.
“Skilled IT consultancy will become increasingly important in the storage market in the Internet of Things era,” said Calthorpe. “Getting the right advisor in place to handle the storage set-up for your company may prove to be crucial in ensuring that you are able to stay in business.”