Making storage technology work for you
Commentary--The demand for storage technology is growing at a dizzying pace--Gartner Dataquest predicts that the storage software market will hit $16.7 billion in 2006, an annual growth rate of 26 percent from 2001--and while the evolution of technology is good, each advance brings with it new customer challenges and confusion in deciding which technology best suits their business needs and how to implement those technologies without disrupting business. As the demand for storage continues to grow, more businesses are investing in storage management software to make the most of existing storage systems and reduce the complexity of managing technology from multiple vendors. So, how will you maximize your spending and improve the efficiency of the technology that you currently have in place?
Listed below are some options to help you get more bang for your buck:
Storage virtualization: Industry estimates reveal that server spending around virtualization will balloon to nearly $15 billion worldwide by 2009. The management of multiple storage devices, particularly those from different vendors, is a tedious task. Storage virtualization makes multiple physical storage networks and devices appear as one "virtual" entity to ease management and administration.
According to Gartner, utilization of typical storage environments rarely exceeds 50 percent. Often times, companies allocate capacity for future storage growth and, as a result, reserved capacity goes undetected, unused and is rarely recovered. Storage virtualization helps identify unused capacity so that businesses can maximize current storage devices and reduce storage costs. Businesses should look to vendors that offer heterogeneous storage virtualization in order to integrate their business processes, simplify administration, maximize utilization and reduce costs associated with managing diverse storage assets.
Storage security: Last year, natural disasters and the unrelenting parade of viruses and data security threats elevated awareness of security strategies and spurred businesses to take a closer look at their vulnerabilities and what they should do to make sure they aren't the next victim. Businesses began looking to storage vendors to help them secure their information and implement plans and solutions for data recovery.
Rather than purchasing security solutions to be placed on top of storage software, businesses should seek out storage products that have security capabilities, such as encryption and key management, built into their storage solutions to arm them with the best possible protection for securing their data.
Storage management software: Given the insurmountable collection of data, storage management software is at the crux of infrastructure management. Today's businesses are faced with an expanding set of data-protection challenges and regulatory data-retention requirements. The 24x7 availability of data and applications is no longer a goal—it's a business necessity. As a result, customers need solutions that leverage existing technology so that they can integrate their infrastructure in order to efficiently store and protect their information assets.
Businesses should invest in storage management software to provide centralized, automated data protection that can help reduce the risks associated with data loss while also helping to reduce complexity, manage costs, enforce service levels and address data retention challenges and requirements.
Standards-based solutions: Data is an increasingly valuable asset for an on demand business. As its value has grown, so have the quantity and complexity of information, making it more costly to store and manage. Maximizing your storage resources requires consolidating them on a flexible, open platform — one that can grow as your business grows and provides a common way to manage the deluge of information through its lifecycle.
Today, there are storage standards initiatives--such as Aperi, an industry-led open source storage community--that are dedicated to reducing the complexity of managing storage and ease end-user challenges. Recognizing that the majority of customers use technology from many vendors, businesses should invest in non-proprietary technology that helps them access, manage and store other vendors' hardware and software allowing them to integrate, access and gain intelligence on storage resources regardless of vendor platform.
Every business will eventually have to face the challenge of how to manage their data without breaking the bank. The ability to protect, recover and retrieve information is a requirement and this has brought storage technology to the forefront of business operations. As data grows, so does the burden of storing it. Businesses should tap into what they already have in place and implement effective storage strategies that will ease management, increase ROI and prolong the life of their systems.
biography
Jamie Gruener is the director of Storage Software for IBM.