All About Data SANity!

Runaway growth in data storage needs could spell disaster, if left
unattended. With storage and management of sensitive information topping their
priority lists, CIOs are moving away from older server-attached models to more
sophisticated network storage architectures like NAS and SAN

Businesses are witnessing an explosion in the volume of data. Whether it is the result of the Internet, e-mail or increasingly
top-heavy and media-rich application software, there seems to be a sudden spurt
in the volume of data all around. And it brings along a host of other problems
for the CIO: data replication, lack of cost-effective data-sharing technologies,
abundance of unattended files, and stale data that its creators use, forget
about and never delete from their disks. Conservative estimates from IDC place
data growth at approximately 80% per year. From a not-so-measly 184,641
terabytes of stored data worldwide in 1999, IDC projects that new data storage
will grow to almost 2,000,000 terabytes by 2003.

The new economy has arrived with a new generation of
applications that are data-fed, data-driven, and data-intensive. Today, no
aspect of enterprise computing deserves more attention than maintaining and
storing corporate data. According to a random survey conducted by Dataquest
across 20 large organizations, it was revealed that about 60% companies were
planning to enhance their storage capacity by 25-50%. CIOs are increasingly
abandoning traditional storage means that will no longer be able to handle the
mountains of data their companies generate. Topologies for storage within the
corporate IT infrastructure have proliferated. Server-attached storage (SAS) is
out; networked storage–including network-attached storage (NAS) and storage
area networks (SANs)–is in.

According to IDC worldwide, networked storage solutions will
show a robust combined annual growth rate of 67% from 1999 through 2003, while
the growth rate for attached storage solutions will decrease by 3% during the
same period. In 1999, only $2.2 billion of the $30 billion spent worldwide on
disk storage was spent on SAN or NAS devices, but this is shifting dramatically
now. IDC predicts that by 2003, combined NAS and SAN acquisitions will exceed
one-third of the estimated $46 billion-disk storage market. "Till about two
years ago, no one was talking about network storage and the market was almost
negligible. But things have changed dramatically over the last few months. Every
large enterprise that wants to get into high level of computing is now
interested in network storage," says Anupam Nagar, country sales manger,
storage, H-P.

SAS shortcomings

The traditionally used server-attached storage model does not
serve increasing business needs any longer. This model, which uses servers, each
with its own directly attached storage devices, creates islands of information.
Whenever more capacity is required, administrators add additional disk space to
existing servers, or add new servers. Back-up is on a local tape drive or a
shared drive over a network. "The SAS mechanism might be fine for
individual needs or for a small setup. But it gets difficult to manage over a
large network," says Nagar.

As business requirements dictate increasing amounts of
storage space, the shortcomings of managing islands of storage directly attached
to servers have become more pronounced. Managing backup of isolated storage
devices also needs additional manpower and cost. And since it cannot be easily
scaled or even reallocated, organizations are forced to over-buy. Organizations
cannot keep enhancing their IT budget to match the growth of storage
requirements.

Utilization of storage capacity in the direct-attached model
is often lower than necessary. As a result there is lot of wastage and network
performance suffers. As storage management gets more complex, there are more
points of failure. "Now more than ever, the scalability of your storage
systems is a critical factor in your company’s ability to compete. The
traditional storage solutions do not fully deliver on the demands of the
Internet age. They are simply not designed to handle the unexpected spikes in
demand for data-driven services, to accommodate the 24 x 7 availability
requirements of today’s end users, or to be managed across globally
distributed networks," says KP Unnikrishnan, country head, marketing, Sun
Microsystems.

Downtime can be disastrous

Downtime can be disastrous

The new economy enterprise needs constant access to inventory
and to customer, employee and external Web databases. Files need to be accessed
instantly with zero downtime. There is a need for effective data management
systems that can produce instant results on actions taken. Most e-commerce
transactions or datawarehousing applications are built around databases, which
need a strong and failure-free foundation of storing, updating and querying
data. Otherwise, downtime costs can be disastrous. "To maintain the
performance of your systems, you need to have a strong foundation and downtimes
have to be minimized," says PK Gupta, director of engineering, Legato.

Downtime costs vary from industry to industry, based on
dependency upon technology and typical labor costs. Companies that are the most
dependent upon automated systems, such as energy and telecom enterprises, accrue
an average of nearly $3 million in losses for every hour of downtime, based on
lost revenue and employee idling, according to an October 2000 Meta Group study.
IT-dependent manufacturing companies and financial institutions suffer per-hour
revenue losses of $1.5-1.6 million. Health care, media and hospitality/travel
companies, less dependent upon IT infrastructure, lose $330,000-636,000 of
revenue per hour. Modern storage-recovery requirements present a problem for
conventional business-continuity planning. The proliferation both in the volume
of data and in the type and topology of storage platforms can affect the
efficacy of all recovery plans.

Towards network storage

As more and more companies are realizing the need to protect
data and enhance storage capacity, the movement towards network storage is fast
catching on. "Increasing downtime costs and the limitations of the
server-attached model have led to the development of network storage. It makes
your infrastructure much more scaleable and flexible," says Gupta. There
are two different approaches for network storage: storage area networking (or
SAN) and network attached storage (NAS). Both SAN and NAS facilitate the sharing of a pool of storage devices, use network
technologies instead of direct attached and have the goal of simplified management of storage. There
are, however, fundamental differences between the two technologies.

SANs solve the LAN-to-storage bottleneck by using fiber
channel or Ethernet technologies to take storage off the server entirely.
Storage is centralized, so individual servers can access tape and hard disk
drives as needed. That translates into more efficient use of storage space and a
much higher level of scalability. In comparison, a NAS is basically a
stripped-down server that is specifically designed for file services, such as
sending, receiving and storing data files. It has its limitations, as it doesn’t
usually provide effective backup. However, it offers significant cost saving,
which is a big advantage over SANs.

"SAN is more suitable for very large-sized organizations
that need high-end transaction capabilities. But in terms of mass deployment,
NAS will definitely become more popular as more people can afford it," says
Sanjiv Nangia, director, LanBit–an organization focused on the NAS segment.

It’s happening in India!

The trend is catching on in India as well. The Dataquest CIO
survey found that 40% of large organizations are planning to go for network
storage architecture in the next 12 months. Corporate users are beginning to
realize the significance of data as a strategic corporate resource. Says Aman
Munglani, senior analyst, IDC India, "The large-sized businesses (>500
employees) have been the primary driver behind new storage purchases." NAS
is also expected to do well in India as long as the product is positioned as
complementing the previously installed storage solution rather than as a total
replacement alternative. IDC India’s research indicates that Indian customers
are seeking scalability rather than total replacement of their existing
solutions. Says MS Sidhu, MD, Apara Enterprise Solutions, "We have been
operating in this space for the past five years. India is a very mature market
for this segment and holds good promise for future in this segment. Currently
more and more customers are setting up their own data centers. Besides, the
Internet data centers (IDCs) are fuelling this growth consistently."

Who is implementing?

Among the verticals, telecom and financial sectors are the
primary industries that stand to benefit the most by network storage
architecture. "Online banking uses transactions that need a robust
architecture like SAN. Most of the progressive Indian banks that want to
automate their operations will have to go for it," says Avijit Basu,
marketing manger, network storage, H-P. ICICI, IDBI, HDFC and UTI have already
begun large-scale SAN implementations.

Among the solution providers, EMC, IBM and Hitachi are
focussed mainly in the high-end segment, others such as H-P, Compaq and Network
Appliance cater to all kind of enterprises. SAN management software companies
such as Tivoli and Legato offer solid products and have established partnerships
with other vendors. The solutions would be as expensive or complex as the needs
of the organization. Although a SAN would mean at least a crore of investment, a
simple NAS solution might cost just Rs 2 lakh or so.

In transition

Although SAN and NAS have emerged as the hottest technologies
in the storage market, there are substantial hurdles to be overcome. The
exploding demand for storage space could be a burden on the company’s IT
budgets. Efficiencies will have to be found to contain the costs of storage
expansion and to improve network performance. Multiplicity of vendors and
solutions has created issues such as interoperability and returns on investment.
From a business standpoint, it might make sense to use a single vendor for the
entire solution. You’ll have fewer contracts to sign, a simpler support system
and a better chance that one set of applications will be able to talk to
another. But you’ll probably pay more for this solution than for something
similar you would integrate on your own.

As with any new technology, the market is in a state of
transition. Organizations are willing to move out of their traditional closets
into the new age methods of data management and storage. Analysts feel that the
factors driving SAN and NAS growth will continue to push the market ahead in
spite of an overall slowdown in capital spending due to economic conditions.

SHWETA VERMA with inputs from Amit Sarkar
in New Delhi