Exploring Storage Efficiency

Enterprises today are grappling with large volumes of data, which in turn, is
influencing higher spends on their storage needs. Planning and forecasting has
not kept pace with the rate at which data is generated. Hence, storage has
become an area where many enterprises are trying to bring in some amount of
efficiency to save costs. Keeping this trend in view, Dataquest recently
organized an event in conjunction with NetApp on Storage Efficiency in Mumbai.

The event began with a highly informative presentation by Surjeet Sen from
NetApp followed by an expert panel discussion on the challenges faced by
enterprises while planning and rolling out their storage and data center needs.
Sen discussed how storage today is a major consumer of power and hence, calls
for high levels of efficiency. He presented case studies of reputed global
companies such as BT, SAP, Google, Amazon which have one of the best storage
strategies in the world. He highlighted how SAP has been able to lower per
terabyte costs by 36% by adopting advanced storage concepts and how Google has
cut down on its cost of storage by planning its data center in countries such as
Iceland, where cooling costs is almost nil.

Sen further explained the metrics used to measure data center, and more
specifically storage efficiency. He briefed the audience on NetApps storage
applications such as de-duplication which helps enterprises reclaim up to 95%
capacity for full back-ups; and thin provisioning which helps in liberating
around 20-33% of storage capacity. He further spoke of NetApps storage concepts
and to what extent they help in reducing additional storage needs and optimize
current storage set-up.

Pawan Desai of Mahindra Special Services Group; Rajesh Jaaney of NetApp India; and SM Swant of Stock Holding Corporation deliberated on how efficient storage can help a company deploy greener IT practices

Kickstarting the panel discussion, Shashwat Chaturvedi, senior assistant
editor, Dataquest, spoke about how efficient storage can also help a company
deploy greener IT practices. The panel was represented by Rajesh Jani,
president, sales, India & SAARC, NetApp; Pawan Desai, head, technical advisory
services, Mahindra Special Services Group; and SM Sawant, VP, IT, Stock Holding
Corporation of India.

Pawan Desai informed how over 90% of legacy data within enterprises is not
used and usually takes up a major chunk of the storage capacities. He said that
processes and people should be included in the process of making storage more
efficient by first determining the value of data and prioritizing them. SM
Sawant highlighted that the challenges to attaining efficiency in an
organization such as Stock Holding Corporation is high availability and
tape-based back-up to meet compliance needs. Excessive care taken to avoid any
data loss and duplication of data and disaster recovery can at times compromise
the efficiency parameters, thus spiking up storage costs. So, the only viable
alternative is to focus more on concepts such as virtualization which reduces
the need for additional storage.

Pawan Desai stressed on determining the value of data and prioritizing them to achieve storage efficiency	Surjeet Sen of NetApp described the efficient storage strategies of a few of the best global companies

Rajesh Jani spoke about the factors that are driving data explosion among
enterprises. He said that as more and more applications and processes get
digitized, the need for storage automatically goes up. Availability of better
storage infrastructure is also the reason for higher storage consumption. He
also said that the primary challenge of bringing in storage efficiency is the
large volumes of unused or non-critical data. Low storage utilization rates came
out as another key challenge of storage efficiency. Also, multiple disaster
recovery sites and back-up measures shoot up storage costs, as a lot of
non-critical data also tends to get duplicated, thus occupying useful storage
space. He emphasized on the need to look at storage in a holistic fashion while
maintaining regulatory and compliance norms.

Multiplicity of storage platforms, deciding on the right mix of storage
platforms, and vendor-driven architecture were some of the key issues discussed
by the members on the panel. Jani further pointed out that with the increasing
emphasis on back-up, DR and distributed storage needs, companies are facing the
challenge of approaching storage as a homogenous environment to improve
operational efficiencies. So, storage efficiency today has to be tackled
differently, depending on the nature of data and applications. He also pointed
that it is easier to measure TCO on the storage technology side, but tough to
measure the efficiency enhancements on the people and process front.

Forecasting of storage needs also came up as a major concern during the
discussion. The panelists as well as the audience opined that long term
forecasting cycles spanning ten years is no longer the norm due to the rapid
technology changes, demanding quicker migration to newer storage concepts.
Classification of data and security of data were the other key subjects
discussed, especially with the increasing popularity of cloud based models that
have improved multi-tenancy. NetApp too indicated its plans to explore concepts
such as storage as a cloud in the near future. The key takeaways from the
session were: the need to maintain data hygiene, prioritizing data, the need to
improve storage utilization rates, and balancing DR and back-up with processes
and compliance needs.

Priya Kekre

priyak@cybermedia.co.in