Disk-based backup and the convergence of data center networking technologies are very much on the minds of storage vendors and users this year.

Falling disk prices and growing backup demands will continue to fuel the growth of disk-based backup, observers say, while virtualization and security needs will drive the convergence of storage, security and networking.

Together, the two trends are emblematic of the need to do more with less, as IT staffs struggle to cope with ballooning volumes of data and IT complexity while trying to meet growing e-discovery, regulatory compliance and business demands.

Disk-based backup and disk-to-disk-to-tape will continue to find favor with storage users, while tape becomes increasingly relegated to an archiving role, industry officials say. Falling costs and technologies such as incremental backups, active archiving and de-duplication are making disk backup more affordable, allowing organizations to use disk to keep more data online and readily available.

EMC senior product manager Scott Delandy said IT organizations realize that relying on tape for backup and restore presents numerous challenges, such as slow recovery times, shrinking backup windows and the operational complexity of tape-related processes, all of which are compounded by an avalanche of information growth.

"As a result, disk-based backup solutions are gaining strong momentum as a key technology to provide a more efficient and reliable backup and recovery process to meet required service levels, protect critical business data and improve IT efficiency," he said.

Disk-based backup is just one part of a state-of-the-art backup and recovery process, Delandy said.

"Disk-based backup and the related concept of disk-to-disk-to-tape alone cannot address the fundamental cause of backup/recovery headaches: enterprise data growth and accumulation," he said. The answer: active archiving.

"Coupling the benefits of a disk-based backup solution with an active archive leads to a 1+1=3 value proposition," said Delandy. "The fundamental premise behind the value of active archiving is that when a digital asset in the production environment is not actively being updated, it should be seamlessly moved into an online archive. These active archives are self-managed and fully protected. And because they free up production system space, performance improves, storage costs fall and backup and recovery processes run faster."

Mark Goros, CEO of CAS startup Caringo, said customers recognize that the quality and integrity of tape backups is suspect, as is the ability to reliably restore data from tape.

"As the amount of data being created continues to grow, so does the cost and overhead associated with managing removable media such as tape," said Goros.

Dave DuPont, CEO of SANRAD, goes further, saying that tape may disappear entirely. He believes that disk-based backup will continue to gain momentum because customers simply dislike tape because it is clunky, vulnerable and rapidly losing its cost advantage.