From the dWb website
Knowing why your storage requirements are growing out of control
Do you know why your storage needs are increasing?
Do you know who owns the data?
Do you know how many copies of files that you have?
Do you know if archiving would benefit you financially?
Do you treat storage as a strategic part of your infrastructure?
Feature Article
Enterprise Storage becomes strategic
Storage has moved from a simple peripheral into the strategic (and even business critical) infrastructure. This journey has accelerated over the last five years as the volumes of data and the need for information has exploded. The quantity of data being stored is now so huge and the business requirement for enterprise access so broad, that organisations now accept that storage is a fundamental part of the cost structure of doing business.
Enterprise Storage Top 20
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Company
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Disk Storage
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Storage Systems
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Management S/W
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Storage
Component
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Tape Storage
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Storage Network
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Tape Backup
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Revenues
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EMC
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ü
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ü
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$6.8B
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IBM
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ü
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ü
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$6.2B
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HP
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ü
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ü
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$6.0B
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SUN
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ü
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ü
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$3.2B
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HDS
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ü
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ü
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$2.7B
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Dell
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ü
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ü
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$1.9B
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Symantec
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ü
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$1.6B
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NetApps
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ü
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ü
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$1.6B
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ADIC
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ü
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$1.2B
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Xyratex
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ü
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$0.7B
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LSI Logic
|
ü
|
ü
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$0.7B
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McData
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ü
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$0.6B
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Brocade
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ü
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$0.6B
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QLogic
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ü
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$0.6B
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Cisco
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ü
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$0.5B
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Emulex
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ü
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$0.4B
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CA
|
ü
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$0.4B
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Adaptec
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ü
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$0.3B
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Overland
|
ü
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$0.2B
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Tandberg
|
ü
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$0.1B
|
This cost burden is growing so fast that it is impinging on the ability to do other things.
While the cost of raw storage reduces by 30% annually the requirement growth (further accelerated by Sarbanes Oxley) exceeds 40%. This difference has a huge impact on the budgets.
What has happened over the last few years is that the reduction in the storage price has concealed the mismanagement of the data. Data storage requirements have been allowed to grow in an undisciplined manner and have been considered an irritation rather than a growing problem. Duplicate data (database replication, personal copies, project files, etc., etc.) has been the consequence of bad application architectures, inappropriate infrastructure investment and bad resource governance. Hard decisions have been avoided.
Many large enterprises still have no strategic archiving capabilities, many large enterprises have no processes to remove data when a person leaves the company and most large enterprises have data management policies that are not policed. No wonder that storage demand is out of control and unsurprisingly the purveyors of storage solutions are not incentivised to change their business models.
Strategic Information Management
The real answer to the problem should be strategic information management (SIM). The information should be considered a business asset and treated as such. The data should be managed as any other business asset with policies to minimise duplication, ensure accuracy and currency, control usage and manage disposal. These activities are often encompassed in information Life-cycle management (ILM) but enterprises have not embraced the concepts - it is too difficult, too abstract and there is no business case.
Wait a minute.
There is a business case. If the data can be managed and the storage growth can be stemmed then we have a business case.
So what can we do about it?
It is important to start managing the data:
- know where it is
- know how it is created
- know who owns it
- know what it is used for
- know how long it is needed
Then you can make decisions:
- where it should be
- when to dispose of it
- how to protect it (and for how long)
and control its journey through life
Maybe storage becoming strategic does have its benefits.