Going Soft on Storage

The managing director of company XYZ is looking for additional storage

capacity as its business on the Web is growing. So the super administrator

decides to use the best available tools–the storage resource management and

data protection software. He makes the necessary requisition on the storage area

management system. The storage node manager soon works out the capacity required

and pops the map of the storage area network (SAN). The software then passes the

request to the storage accountant, which keeps record of the sanctioned storage

capacity and its location. The storage area manager software then sends the

storage request to storage builder, which in turn recognizes the space and

indicates that it is available by forwarding the request to the storage

optimizer. The optimizer further analyzes the exact nature of storage required

based on factors like high availability, fast Web use and access and gives a

green signal. Next, the software sends a request to the storage allocation

software that not only assigns the requisite storage but also ensures its

security.

All this is done within minutes of the request and without causing any

breakdown of services. Also, in case the company XYZ has outsourced the service

to a storage service provide, the super administrator can also let the storage

allocation software send details to the storage accountant and bill the company

within the same time frame.

If you thought this is a typical scene from some hi-fi future office, you are

right. However, experts suggest that the problem with the storage industry today

is that it is becoming cheaper to buy and harder to manage. Application demands

are growing exponentially and dynamically, making management policies hard to

understand and define. And while common computing platforms–from Unix to NT,

and Linux–offer varying levels of storage management capabilities, they are

still quite immature in their management offerings and it is here that the

biggest opportunity exists. As the value of data increases, the need to manage

it more effectively escalates. Currently, numerous estimates suggest that the $5

billion plus storage software market is expected to exceed $14 billion in annual

revenues by 2004.

100% growth, and growing



According to an IDC India report, the storage management software market in

India has increased exponentially by 74%–from $8.5 million in 2000 to $14.8

million in 2001. Talking about the key market trends beyond year 2002, the

market research company suggests that the demand for storage management software

will be triggered off by the drop in prices for storage devices, which is

expected to stimulate the purchasing cycle. Also, large enterprises are expected

to improve their business processes by investing in enterprise applications that

will encourage demand for storage devices and storage management software.

Best Practices Index
	Deploy enterprise wide data protection / storage management, rather than departmental storage management
	Implement storage management software in a highly available environment providing increased accessibility of data
	Implement storage  management  software  to leverage existing IT infrastructure which should be capable of seamlessly integrating into newer storage technologies like SAN and NAS
	Reduce the  cost of  ownership by implementing  storage management with a ‘lights-out’ and ‘hands-off’ approach to contain the operational costs
	It should have an intuitive interface like a Web browser manageable from anywhere
	Should have efficient disaster recovery capabilities
	The storage management software should support multiple operating systems, applications and databases
	Implement a storage management solution for high performance, including streaming of multiple streams of data to backup devices
Source: Legato Systems India

What this means is that the future is closer than one can think, with the

likes of Veritas, Legato, EMC, IBM, CA and HP working hard to achieve a

manageable storage ecosystem. With the explosion of digital information, and the

corresponding need to grow storage capacity, IT organizations are trying to gain

control over the storage environment. As a result, the industry has been

searching for the right paradigm to take storage from a dedicated,

direct-attached state where storage space is unshared and unmanaged into a

networked state where all storage resources on the network are available for use

by all host computers.

Says Bithin Talukdar, HP India’s marketing development and alliance manager

for its software global business unit, "The challenge today is about

managing the migration from direct-attached to peer-to-peer storage networks.

This is where storage management software has an important role to play."

The management gap



An excellent example of the growing storage management gap is highlighted in

a report by Michael Peterson of Strategic Research Corporation titled ‘The

Future of the Business Network’. The report states that the management gap has

become huge and without profound change in management tools, it will be

insurmountable. The management gap widens as storage demand grows faster than

storage management capability. In 2000, the average storage administrator could

manage on the average 300-500 gigabytes.

The report projects that in 2005, the average storage administrator should be

capable of managing about 4.5 terabytes while the average site capacity will

have grown to over 50 terabytes. Since there clearly is no oversupply or even

growth in the number of storage administrators, the gap widens. This issue

describes the impending infinite disruption in the storage industry and without

significant changes and improvements in storage management software, the

tradeoffs of not managing storage could be fatal. Just think, what if those

companies in lower Manhattan after September 11 hadn’t implemented adequate

backup and recovery strategies?

According to experts, storage software not only makes it easier for

organizations to manage their information and further accelerate the deployment

of open storage networks, it also helps companies dramatically reduce TCO. This

will enable them to get the most out of their storage assets, and more

importantly, improve interoperability, while enabling companies to focus on

improving their business processes and competitiveness.

The advanced functionality provided by software and storage management

software plays a vital role in administering distributed IT assets, maintaining

high availability and minimizing downtime. The effective management of resources

from the data center across the network increases both productivity and revenue.

Storage software of the future will also address administrative costs, downtime,

back up and recovery, as well as hardware management.

Management ease, better RoI



Gartner Dataquest defines storage management software as the tool needed to
manage capacity, performance and availability of data stored on disks, tapes and

optical devices and the networking devices that the data may pass through.

Echoes Computer Associates CTO Rohit Ghai, "In simple terms, storage

management software is a tool that manages your storage ecosystem, including the

hardware and the software solutions–from data protection (backup and restore)

to storage resource management and storage infrastructure (including

replication, and file system management)." Adds IBM India’s (enterprise

systems group) country manager M Ganesh, "Storage software helps you

efficiently manage every aspect of an organizations’ storage resources and

allows an organization to address issues concerning disaster tolerance, data

consolidation, data availability and data sharing."

To make things simple, let’s understand what storage means in the IT world.

Computer storage is the holding of data in an electromagnetic form for access by

a computer processor and can be divided into primary and secondary types. While

primary storage comprises data in random access memory and other ‘built-in’

devices, secondary storage can be defined as the data on disks, tapes, and other

external devices. While primary storage is much faster to access because of the

proximity of the storage to the processor or because of the nature of the

storage devices, secondary storage can hold much more data.

However, today’s computer storage needs have evolved from simply backing up

on a tape to pulling data from multiple heterogeneous environments across the

enterprise and managing these functions from a central vantage point.

According to Veritas Software Solutions’ India country manager Agendra

Kumar, "There has been a dramatic shift toward designing and building full

storage architectures and storage software is increasingly being regarded as the

key to unlock the potential of data and information to realize maximum business

value and returns on investment." Sums up Legato Systems Indiae country

manager Nikhil Madan, "Storage hardware is the platform and storage

software is the intelligence." So what is the rule for determining the

storage needs of an organization and hence the investment?

Business drives the need



"The need for storage management tools will vary depending on what the

company does," remarks Talukdar.

Experts suggest that storage spending cannot be seen as an island distant

from the rest of the business. Rather, storage needs to be taken as part of the

overall solution because advanced functionality provided by such software plays

a vital role in administering distributed IT assets, maintaining high

availability, and minimizing downtime. The effective management of resources

across the network also has a positive bearing on both productivity and revenue.

Hence companies need to first define their business goals.

Attributes of Good Storage Software
	Enables mobility, allowing easy migration of data, by demand or policy, between logical and physical locations
	Innocuous, allowing transparent expansion
	Behaves elastically, allowing expansion and contraction without application interruption
	Performs persistently, always-on-always available until it is removed from management control
	Operates in a secure manner, where data is protected from unauthorized access
	Is economical, where the total cost of management decreases as storage sizes increase
	Is responsive, so that performance service level parameters are met
	Has instant visibility, so that authorized users have access to data, regardless of the storage infrastructure.
	Delivers automation, thus reducing the chances of failure due to workmanship or other such administrative issues of managing large amounts of data
Source: HP India

According to Talukdar, one of the biggest mistakes a company can commit is to

look at storage as a separate item to spend money on. "The spending on

storage must be in relation to the business requirements and the rest of the IT

infrastructure. IT is changing the way business is delivered and the way it is

consumed within an enterprise. Hence an organization’s storage strategy and

the selection of the right software depends on the phase of business

transformation an organization is going through."

Adds Ghai, "Organizations need to first work out the volume and

criticality of data to be backed up and the backup window available, beside the

need to find the volume of existing data and the expected growth in volume.

Distribution of data across the enterprise, information on applications and data

generated by these applications besides availability of network bandwidth (LAN

and WAN) and availability of skilled staff and funds also needs to be worked out

before deciding on the storage strategy."

Comments nStor Technologies’ software and solutions product manager Jim

Fernandes, "No matter how you look at it, the powerful and efficient

management of storage resources is critical for maximizing business productivity

and reducing administration costs. As IT managers continue to be faced with

exploding amounts of data to store, secure, and make continuously available

across the enterprise, the industry is assured of a continuing worldwide demand

for effective storage management tools."

SHUBHENDU PARTH in New Delhi