Multiple storage technology storylines highlighted 2019. From the hardware side, we saw more announcements that included NVMe and NVMe over fabrics (NVMe-oF) technology. We heard announcements of systems that integrate storage-class memory (SCM), and several more identified as SCM-ready. We saw industry-wide consolidation with several smaller storage innovators getting acquired not only by their larger on-premises counterparts, but also public cloud providers, with Google acquiring Elastifile. What will the next 12 months bring?

Before we get to that, let’s look back at last year’s projections.