Digital Lifescapes

The healthcare sector was slow to adopt new technologies, including cloud services, according to the latest worldwide market study by Frost & Sullivan. That's about to change. Industry-wide demand to use health data to improve system efficiency, deliver value-based care and enable productive collaborations is driving new investment in cloud solutions. At the heart of these innovations is a clear shift in healthcare provider attitude toward hybrid IT trends, with key decision makers now convinced that cloud computing environments could be more secure than on-premise infrastructure -- especially in terms of data back-up and disaster recovery. Healthcare Enterprise Market Development Frost & Sullivan finds that the global market for healthcare cloud computing -- revenue generated by cloud computing services offered to providers -- will be worth almost $10 billion by 2021, primarily driven by the need to store the exponentially increasing volume of healthcare data. Thei...

Home computer users save more data than ever before. The phenomenal growth of digital photography, audio, and video has focused consumer minds on the secure storage of their pictures, music, and movies -- raising the profile of backup and media server solutions. Although most consumers still rely on single-computer backup scenarios, a small but growing number are opting for Network Attached Storage (NAS). While the market is still relatively small, consumer NAS is expected to deliver more than $1.25 billion in revenues by 2011. "In order to move the consumer NAS market forward," says ABI Research senior analyst Jason Blackwell, "vendors, including leaders, need to educate and inform consumers about NAS advantages." Consumer NAS equipment falls into three groups: - Integrated NAS drives, which include the necessary networking software. - Network storage enclosures, for those who wish to add the hard disk themselves. - Storage routers and bridges, which allow attachme...