Application high availability becomes universal
As reliance on applications continues to rise, IT teams will be pressured to deliver efficient high availability for applications once considered non-essential. Once reserved for mission-critical systems, such as SQL Server, Oracle, SAP, and HANA, application high availability – typically delivered with HA clustering technology – will become a requirement for more systems, applications, and services throughout the enterprise.
Cloud and OS agnostic high availability becomes an expected requirement for most applications
IT teams will look for application HA solutions that reduce complexity and improve cost-efficiency by supporting multiple operating systems, platforms, and environments. For example, companies with some applications running in on-prem data centers and others in cloud environments as well as those running some applications in Windows and others in Linux environments will move to HA solutions that deliver a consistent user interface and expert technical support across all of their environments.
The trend toward migration to SAP HANA is likely to continue in 2024
The SAP-mandated 2027 migration will push more companies to migrate to SAP HANA. As a result, there will be an increased need for more automated and flexible high availability and disaster recovery solutions that help them bridge the gap between existing systems and the new, more modern systems that take advantage of SAP HANA’s capabilities. Organizations will look for HA solutions that help them find ways to take advantage of emerging technologies and accelerate digital transformation, without losing the HA and DR capabilities that continue to arise.
Automation becomes more common in high availability and disaster recovery as data and analytics increase complexity
As the volume and variety of data and the ways through which data are collected increase, organizations will require more hands-free recovery orchestration, and more information about why faults/failures occurred and how to address potential issues. Automation and orchestration tools will play a central role, eliminating error-prone manual scripting, streamlining root cause analysis, improving intelligent responses, and enhancing disaster recovery processes to further reduce downtime and enhance data availability.
The focus on data security and compliance will intensify
The focus on data retention, security, and access controls will intensify prompting organizations to integrate enhanced security measures deeper into their high availability and disaster recovery solutions, services, and strategies. As the volume and variety of data as well as the channels through which data are collected and processed increase, organizations will require more security measures to be baked into their solutions.
Sophisticated storage and DR strategies will become crucial to the demands of an increasingly dynamic and data-driven business landscape
As the volume of unstructured data continues to surge, storage solutions are expected to prioritize scalability, tiered performance, and accessibility. Enterprises will also adopt more sophisticated and resilient DR strategies using multiple high availability nodes, and DR technologies that understand the complexity of tiered storage solutions. Cloud storage is expected to continue its ascendancy, with organizations increasingly relying on scalable and flexible cloud solutions to meet their expanding data requirements. At the same time, a growing number of companies will look to move workloads out of the cloud to on-prem environments in favor of more predictable costs and greater control over their environments.
The author
Cassius Rhue is VP of Customer Experience, SIOS Technology.
