The IT — Storage World of 2009
Continuing the series blog post on Storage Resource Analysis (SRA), this post focuses on the “IT – Storage World of 2009” and the requirements / importance of it around today’s overall Storage Strategy.
Read the entire series of posts on Storage Resource Analysis (SRA):
Part 1: Storage Resource Analysis and Storage Economics
Part 2: The IT — Storage World of 2009
Part 3: The IT — Storage Budgets of 2009
Part 4: Some Fundamental Questions
Part 5: Facts about your Data
Part 6: Inconsistencies in Storage Environments
Part 7: The Technical Case
Part 8: The Business Case
Part 9: The End Result
The following are the important facets of Today’s IT — Storage Environments.
- Complexity
- Infrastructure
- Cost
- Tiering
- Replication & Archiving
- Virtualization
- Content Management
- Deduplication
- Client Usage Billing
- Database Growth
- File System Growth
The Categories are now divided into Sub Categories: These categories and sub categories are primarily focused around the Storage Domain.
Complexity around Environments
- Business Processes
- Automation
- Faster response times
- SLA’s
- Applications requirements
- OS’s requirements
- Networking Layers interface
- Fabric Layers technology
- Virtualization Layers
- Technology Evolution
- Uptime Requirements
- Multi Vendor Support
- Mergers and Acquisitions
- Storage Consolidation
- Storage Migration
Infrastructure Requirements
- Datacenter Requirements
- Application availability
- Application Support
- Storage backend Support
- Outsourcing
- Insourcing
- Cost Management
- Power Requirements
- Utilization of Storage (x% from CIO)
Cost
- CapEx Reduction
- OpEx Reduction
- Cost of Support
- Penalties
Tiering Requirements
- Application Tiering
- Business Process Tiering
- User Data Tiering
- Cost Savings
Replication & Archiving
- Sarbanes Oxley
- HIPPA
- SEC
- Other Compliance
- Critical Business Requirements
- Critical Application Requirements
Virtualization
- Utilization
- Efficiency
- Uptime
- Floor Space
- Green Data Center
Content Management
- Business Processes
- User Data
- Meta Data
Deduplication
- Backup Windows
- File Transfers times
- Bandwidth
Client Usage Billing
- Centralized Shared Storage
- Centralized Management
- Charge Backs and Bill Backs
- Complex processes for Usage Billing
Database Growth
- Ever growing databases
- Database requirements in terms of storage
- Database Log files
- Log Shipping
- Critical Applications around Databases
File System Growth
- Ever Growing file systems
- User Data
- Business Process Data
While we talk about the IT — Storage Industry and its surrounding requirements and impact, we need to know the Storage Economics behind it.
While the File Systems are consistently growing, Databases are exponentially growing, Compliance is a must and business processes are becoming critical every day, how do we manage and leverage what we have plus help reduce CapEx / OpEx and still manage to keep uptime/ efficiency / utilization.
Example:
I recently had a chance to visit a MNC (Multi National Company) to talk about Storage. We had long 6 hour meetings with various Application Owners, Business Group Owners, Strategic Planning folks, member’s from the CIO’s office, Storage Administrator and Host Administrator. During these sessions, we asked them a few basic questions about their Storage environments related to usage, outages, charge backs, new acquisition, storage management, process management, etc.
It was very surprising to see disconnect of priorities that various different teams had based on the role they played in that organization. Certain folks were talking about budget reductions, while some had priorities to play around with the latest technologies, while some had priorities about the application uptime, while some were focused on growth and some thought about ease of use.
But during the entire time we did not hear any common messages from these various teams about efficiency and optimization of their Storage Environments…
Well, let’s move on…
What do you do to keep up with the IT — Storage requirements?
Is someone helping you purchase new Storage?
