Written By Eric Herzog, Infinidat

Across almost every aspect of modern life, we have come to expect technology to do more than the generation before it. Smartphones have evolved from simple communication devices into cameras, navigation devices, digital wallets, and personal entertainment platforms. Our kitchen appliances are intelligent and tell us how we can save money on running costs and when they need servicing. Cars are safer to drive, more efficient and increasingly include built-in intelligence. It won’t be too long before driverless cars are widely adopted as well. Uber plans to launch a driverless taxi service in London which is like other parts of the world, such as in several major cities in the US.

Enterprise applications are no exception to this trend. In almost every area of business operations, the technology deployed by organisations is no longer judged simply by how well it does the job it was originally purchased for, but by how much more it enables an enterprise to achieve. The same shift is taking place in enterprise storage. Enterprises increasingly expect the same amount of investment to deliver greater returns.

As enterprises modernise their storage infrastructure to better support new strategic initiatives and manage exponential data growth, the requirements of what enterprise storage can deliver continues to evolve. Capacity and performance remain essential, but they are no longer the only measures of success. Increasingly, storage platforms are expected to simplify operations, support a wider range of workloads and help IT organisations respond to growing business demands – without adding unnecessary complexity or cost.

IDC’s ‘Business Value of Storage’ study identified these changing requirements. Published in early 2026, the report highlights that infrastructure modernisation and IT optimisation remain top enterprise priorities – despite the challenging economic climate. But at the same time, enterprises must also ensure the performance, availability, cyber resilience, and reliability of critical business applications remain outstanding, whilst responding to increasing business demands and budgetary pressures. In this environment, IDC’s report concludes that storage systems capable of delivering high performance, consolidating workloads, and automating key management functions take on even greater importance for their users. It’s a transition for storage from being seen as a ‘backroom capability’ to a highly strategic enterprise asset.

IDC’s report concludes that the proliferation of new, ‘digital business’ initiatives is making enterprises rethink their requirements for storage infrastructure. Data-intensive applications like business analytics and AI are driving demand for ever higher performance, greater scalability and improved accessibility. In addition, the adoption of hybrid cloud environments has increased the need for storage systems that can reliably support diverse workloads.

The report also highlights how the most advanced storage technologies continue to evolve in response to these changing requirements. For instance, reducing storage complexity, reducing the data centre footprint and minimising energy consumption, increasing scalability, cyber storage capabilities, and adding intuitive management automation are all identified as important developments. These trends suggest that enterprise storage needs to do more than just provide basic storage capacity. It is increasingly expected to reduce the operational ‘effort’ associated with managing growing storage environments too.

One of the strongest themes running throughout IDC’s research was the drive to reduce storage complexity and consolidate infrastructure. Global Fortune 500 companies and large enterprises interviewed in the study consistently highlighted the benefits of simplifying their storage management and cited efficient ‘set it and forget it’ administration and automation as important benefits. According to IDC, these capabilities reduced administrative overhead and enabled IT teams to spend less time on routine storage activities while maintaining high availability. The report also noted that simplified management and automation allowed smaller teams to manage larger storage environments and devote more time to other strategic initiatives.

These experiences were reflected in measurable operational improvements being reported. IDC found that enterprises achieved the following advantages:

• 64% less time spent on day-to-day storage tasks
• 51% more efficient deployment of new storage arrays
• 64% more efficient storage upgrades
• 49% improvement in storage team efficiency.

Importantly, these improvements meant that the IT teams in the study could focus less on routine maintenance and spend more time on activities that support wider business objectives.

The IDC study also demonstrates how modern storage platforms are expected to accommodate continued growth whilst at the same time simplifying infrastructure. According to the report, enterprises benefited from using advanced storage solutions with high-density architecture, efficient data reduction, and workload consolidation, enabling them to expand usable storage capacity while reducing overall storage costs. Support for multiple workloads on fewer systems also reduced infrastructure complexity and lowered associated hardware, networking and operational costs.

At a time when energy costs are exceptionally high, several enterprises in the IDC study also highlighted that consolidating their storage solutions reduced the number of enterprise storage systems required, which in turn reduced the overall data centre footprint and energy consumption. Others highlighted the ability to support multiple use cases without deploying separate storage systems. These findings suggest that scalability is no longer measured simply by how much additional storage can be deployed, but by how effectively companies can continue to grow without increasing operational complexity.

Overall, IDC’s research demonstrates that organisations investing in advanced enterprise storage are benefiting from much broader and more strategic operational outcomes. Simplified day-to-day management, greater workload consolidation, the ability to predictably scale the data infrastructure, improved operational efficiency and reduced complexity were all seen as enterprise-critical benefits. When considered together, they illustrate, based on direct user experiences, how far enterprise expectations of storage have evolved.

Enterprise storage is much more than simply a repository for ever-growing data volumes. Just like the other technology we use throughout our lives, it is expected to deliver more. Phones no longer provide only basic communication services – they help us manage almost every aspect of our lives more easily. Enterprise storage is no different – it’s no longer simply a question of how much data can be managed, but how much of the day-to-day effort involved in managing that data can be removed. IDC’s findings highlight just how significant this capability is for enterprises and, importantly, how many additional benefits they can realise when this goal is achieved.

About Eric Herzog

Eric Herzog is the Chief Marketing Officer at Infinidat, a Lenovo company. Prior to joining Infinidat, Herzog was CMO and VP of Global Storage Channels at IBM Storage Solutions. His executive leadership experience also includes: Senior Vice President of Product Management and Product Marketing for EMC’s Enterprise & Mid-range Systems Division, and CMO and Senior VP of Alliances for all-flash storage provider Violin Memory.

www.infinidat.com