What Devoncroft’s latest Big Broadcast Survey means for cloud storage strategies (blog and webinar)

By Jonathan Wall

Recently, we noted a Forbes article from Tom Coughlin provided insight and supporting data behind the growing file size trend and the associated explosion of storage growth. This is most notable with cloud storage – increasing 37x to more than 11,000 PB in 2014. That trend will continue with a projected increase in digital storage by 2019 of 5.4x.

But what is even more interesting than this significant growth is how media companies are actually using and planning to use the cloud.

For that, lets look at research from another analyst firm, Devoncroft, who just published initial findings from their 2014 Big Broadcast Survey of more than 10,000 participants at more than 100 companies. (You can join Signiant and Devoncroft for a webinar on accelerating file transfers into cloud storage on November 6 at 2pm ET 11 am PT.)

Devoncroft asked “what have you already deployed in the cloud, or plan to deploy in the cloud over the next 2-3 years?” The answers reveal that storage is far and away the most common use for the cloud, which is supported by the recent Coughlin/Forbes article too.

Devoncroft also conducted the survey in 2013, and, as in 2014, storage was the big winner, but there are some important trends that anyone engaged in planning cloud strategies might want to note.

For convenience, here are the 2014 and 2013 word clouds side by side, though you may want to view them in full size on the Devoncroft site.

1. The number of different cloud deployments that were cited in 2013 is much smaller in 2013 compared to 2014. This means that the ways media companies are using or will use the cloud significantly expanded over the past year, and that this trend will continue to grow in the coming years. It will be interesting to see how busy this picture is in 2015.
2. The amount of “Do not know” responses related to cloud usage in 2013 was far greater than in 2014. That means that cloud awareness is not only growing, but plans for adopting the cloud are being implemented as a core part of everyday operations.
3. Amazon Web Services has arrived for media. It wasn’t even in the results in 2013, and now it’s one of the most visible and prominent ways people use and will use the cloud.

Depending on your organization’s view of the cloud and future plans, you may see this as confirmation of what you already know. Others may view this as another call to action about building out your cloud strategy. And that leads to two questions:

1. What is your cloud strategy?  Based on Devoncroft’s research, most organizations are solidifying and expanding those strategies now.
2. Do you have large files or data sets that you need to get into or out of cloud storage quickly? If so, how are you going to do that?

If you need to get your digital files into or out of Amazon S3 or other cloud platforms, Signiant Flight makes that both fast and easy for you.

Do you want to learn more about these trends and Signiant Flight?  Join Devoncroft and Signiant for a webinar to learn more about cloud storage adoption and accelerated file transfers on November 6^th at 2 pm ET / 11 am PT.