2009: The year of the perfect storage storm?
A storm is brewing.
UK companies might be putting IT spending on hold so they can weather the economic downturn but the business-critical data that they rely on to remain competitive continues to grow unabated.
On top of this, the practical ability for most companies to host more equipment to store and manage more data is being severely impacted by the expectation that many UK datacenters are rapidly running out of space and power.
For the budget-challenged IT manager, the need to do more with less has become a sudden and harsh reality. It’s the perfect storage storm.
Of course, companies won’t stop investing in storing and managing data. In fact, while Gartner, IDC and other market analyst firms predict overall declines in IT spending for the next 12 months, the one consistent area of IT growth is in storage.
Storage efficiency is, naturally, being cited as one of the biggest drivers for companies determining their storage spend this year and beyond. This was confirmed in a study by analyst research firm Enterprise Strategy Group. Its survey of 504 global storage professionals found that budget-conscious storage decisions in 2009 will be driven by efficiency. The survey also identified that specific efficiency-friendly technologies enabling data reduction, intelligent tiered storage and storage reservation were among the top priorities for the next 24 months.
Boosting efficiency
Interest in these technologies clearly indicates a growing trend, indeed a flight, towards efficiency. By boosting the efficiency of their storage infrastructure companies can accommodate data growth within strictly limited budgets. And they can do all this using a smaller hardware footprint that consumes less physical space and, in turns, draws down less energy. When these technologies are combined, the compounded efficiencies can be dramatic and immediate. It’s not uncommon to see 90 percent utilisation improvements over legacy storage capacities resulting in further significant reductions in energy needs.
It sounds simple enough but a major hurdle remains. Companies often find it very hard to break free from the traditional storage brands, now pilloried for their excessive inefficiencies, to which they’ve grown accustomed to using. They are also reluctant to move when they look back at the high investment in training and other costs they’ve incurred. However, with the economy at the fore-front of all major spending decision there is now much greater pressure on IT managers to explore new options that deliver greater efficiency. The historical reluctance to transition from the big brands is starting to erode as value and efficiency move to the top of the priority list.
Intelligent tiered storage
Of these technologies, intelligent tiered storage is often cited as the one with the most direct economic impact to the business. This includes tiered storage across entire systems as well as within the array itself; indeed, even down to individual disk platters. Being able to set policies for data movement, and then transparently automate the movement of that data based on metrics such as frequency of use represents a massive advantage over traditional storage systems. Intelligent tiered storage also ensures that data movement is just as easy in both directions, with relegation to a lower tier if it isn't being used and promotion to a higher tier when it is. This is the bedrock for true storage efficiency.
IT managers need to ramp up their knowledge of intelligent tiered storage as quickly as possible and ensure that it’s a central platform for their future storage strategy. Not only will this help solve their immediate problems of data growth, budget limits, space and energy, but it can just as directly benefit their company’s bottom line. In this period of economic uncertainty, a healthy obsession with efficiency will be the key to weathering the storm.
