There’s a storm brewing and chances are, it’s going to hit your data center or cloud site.

It’s the tsunami of data that is washing over the IT world and it is just going to get worse. That’s because there is an insatiable demand for data: big data, ERP, CRM, BI, EHR, and of course all of that social media and video that is flooding global organizations like a bursting dam.

I’ll admit it, I’m a dinosaur. I got started in the IT industry in the late 1970’s at IBM. So I can rightly say that I’ve seen a lot in the past 40 years. When I started, it was the heyday of the mainframe era. Data processing was still practically a priesthood back then. It wasn’t for everyone. Bill Gates would not proclaim “Information at your fingertips” for at least another dozen years.

Clearly, we’ve come a long way in four decades. The three driving factors – exponentially increased compute power, nearly unlimited storage, and the internet have delivered computing nirvana. Or so it would seem. But with abundance comes challenges. Frankly, we are now awash in data. The tsunami of available information is swamping IT environments worldwide. And even with huge advances in the three driving factors (compute, storage and the internet) IT is experiencing performance bottlenecks on an increasing basis. Recently, we conducted a survey of 1400 IT professionals and fully 27% said they are experiencing performance problems that are causing user complaints and slowdowns.

As usual, our industry is innovating to keep up. Cloud based computing that takes advantage of huge data centers as well as innovation in storage, compute power and connectivity has kept up with much of the demand. However, most of these improvements focus on hardware – all flash storage arrays; 64-core servers; hyper-convergence. But there’s one other performance innovation that is often overlooked: Software.

Software innovation that takes advantage of existing and new hardware capabilities can significantly increase performance without the cost of additional hardware. Even with an all flash storage back-end, software like ours can significantly increase performance and extend the life of the hardware. The cost-benefit can be tremendous. Imagine getting a 50% boost in performance (or even 2-3X) without buying a single additional piece of hardware. CEOs and CFOs love that kind of benefit.  I know, because that is what we hear from our customers every day.

So, before you get swamped by the tsunami of data that’s lapping at your data center, consider a software solution to the problem. It can help you stay afloat without having to buy a new yacht!