IT bottlenecks harm life sciences research

Avere Systems has released a report analyzing data from a recent survey conducted by Cambridge HealthTech about data storage in the life sciences industry. The survey revealed that 64 percent of respondents said their current storage capacity has the potential to slow down access to important research data; 75 percent also agreed that that the use of cloud storage will rise.

"The survey findings confirm what Avere is hearing and seeing out in the field from our customers. Current IT infrastructures are slowing down the ability to make critical discoveries in the field of life sciences," said Jeff Tabor, Senior Director of Product Management and Marketing, Avere Systems. "There is an intensely competitive research market in the life sciences field and any delay can potentially result in the loss of millions of dollars and years of research due to a patent being awarded to competitors."

In addition to examining the existing hardships, respondents were asked what the main concerns were when considering an object-based cloud storage solution. The number one response was integrating cloud storage with on-premises storage. The second and third were data migration, specifically on-ramping and off-ramping data from the cloud.

The life sciences industry processes massive amounts of data and it is vital to have access to it across all storage mediums. Integrating cloud storage with on-premises storage is a unique benefit of Avere Systems and eliminates this concern. With Avere's FlashMove software, the data can move seamlessly from the cloud to on-prem. Since the introduction of the Virtual FXT, Avere is able to help customers connect the dots between the compute cloud, storage cloud, and on-premises storage without sacrificing performance, worrying about security, or adding a costly budget line.

Additional key findings from the survey include:

• 85 percent of respondents believe that use of cloud compute will rise
• Just under two-thirds consider IT budgets to be "inadequate" to support the rate of data growth
• 72 percent said IT infrastructure limitations will create bottlenecks
• Three-quarters run applications that require high performance data access

"Enhancing on-premises infrastructure and providing a smooth path to the storage and compute cloud to enable management of the entire environment as a single, holistic solution is key to providing datacenter flexibility," said Tabor. "At Avere, we want to equip customers with better ways to leverage their data without worrying about backend issues or additional costs and let them focus on significant breakthroughs in the life sciences community."