The number of awards within the storage category is relatively stable. There were three Awards in this category: Backup Storage, Enterprise Storage and Storage Management Software. Although these three awards remain the same in 2012, the technologies involve each of them have undergo a significant transformation in the past decade.

Backup Storage

Backup Storage simply means tape storage in 2002. But technology advancement has transformed the media and requirements in backup storage. CWHK Awards divided this award into Tape Backup and Disk Backup since 2006 to reflect such demand.  Nevertheless, with the price of hard disk drive (HDDs) continue to drop and the incidences of losing tapes with private customer data are rising, many enterprises are forced to review their backup storage strategy and media. Enterprises are encouraged to use a mixed media for backup based on data criticality. The choice of medium has become less relevant, as compared with the choice of providers for a comprehensive backup offering.

Enterprise Storage

Like servers, storage systems were divided in mid-rage and enterprise class. However, the exponential growth of data and increasing demand for enterprise-class features, like network-attached, data protection, disaster recovery and centralized management, have become the “must-haves” in storage systems for all sizes.

Storage Management Software

In the past decade, storage infrastructure was constantly evolved, from direct-attached storage and networked storage system to storage virtualization and the latest cloud-based storage. Despite changes in storage infrastructure, the demand for centralized storage management software to constantly monitor and optimize storage capacity across different arrays, platforms and locations remain the same.