In this episode Infrastructure Matters, hosts Steven Dickens, Camberley Bates and Krista Macomber cover Google's egress fee drop as a potential trendsetter for other cloud providers, making repatriation and hybrid workloads more attractive. Additionally, they provide their key predictions for 2024, including:

• Repatriation: Increased focus on workload placement based on cost and security, with egress fees playing a smaller role.

• Cybersecurity: Remains a top priority, with AI playing a bigger role in detection and response.

• AI adoption: Increased use of AI in data protection and security, particularly for training and automated responses.

• Mergers and Acquisitions: Expect more major deals, impacting the vendor landscape and channel partners.

• Generative AI: Growing concern about data security and protection implications, requiring best practices and processes.

• Mainframe 60th anniversary: Potential influx of activity and press attention to the space, possibly with M&A and new announcements.

• Data storage trends: Adoption of QLC SSDs, emergence of HTDs, and security built into primary storage.

• Data protection and security: Continued focus on data privacy, quantum-resistant encryption, and cyber resiliency.