Three "Big Themes" at Storage Networking World

I spent the week at the Storage Networking World (SNW), conference in Orlando and I noticed three big themes. I plan to write an entry on each, but first I'll introduce the set:

Theme #1: Continuous Data Protection (CDP)

I can't find solid agreement on exactly what CDP means, but it is part of a set of related technologies, all interesting. They include disk-to-disk backup and archiving, virtual tape libraries, snapshots and write-logging. CDP is the hot term, though, so anyone with any of these technologies calls whatever they do "CDP".

Theme #2: Crypto-Compression

Companies are using "crypto-hashes" as a way of compressing data in a surprising variety of applications: some are compressing backups; some are compressing primary storage; some are compression wide-area network traffic; some are compressing specific network protocols. I think that crypto-compression is going to turn out to be a fundamental advance in computer science.

Theme #3: Virtualization

Virtualization is "hot" again. Several years ago virtualization got hot, but then nobody delivered anything, so virtualization became taboo. Now it's gaining ground again.

The first two themes show most strongly on the vendor exhibition floor - especially among the startups. The third theme shows up more strongly when you listen to the big vendors talk.