The Decade of Storage?

First
it was LAN. Then WAN. Now it could be storage area networks, or
simply SAN. The concept of network storage, existing from the punch
card days, is just beginning to crystallize into a mature technology.

Consider
the statistics. 80% of office related suicides happen due to data
loss (BBC Re-

search). More than 50% of total IT spending in the enterprise across
the globe will be on storage (International Data Corporation). The
average number of data restores per year are 55-over once a week
(Strategic Research). 65% of businesses that experience a 10-day
data loss go out of business (PC Today, National Computer Security
Association). These were statistics in the opening slide of a vendor
presentation to its customers. These are not merely startling statements
in the presentation-these are indicators of paramount importance.

All
this goes on to prove the paramount importance of data that needs
to be backed up, stored and managed for the regular functioning
of businesses. Storage technology today is the critical link to
the computing and business needs of an organization. The pressure
on storage is mounting. This is because data capacity is growing
exponentially. It doubles twice every year, according to sources
in the industry. Such being the case, all IT resources are under
pressure, whether it's sharing, quick-time restores or management.

Customers
are demanding that storage devices of various vendors talk to each
other, and work at greater speeds to access information instantly.
More than 50% of the total IT spending in enterprises across the
globe is happening on storage. As a result, people are looking at
ways and means of arriving at an ideal storage system.

The
'Age of Storage'

The emphasis and significance of storage is such that, the next
decade is hailed as the 'Age of Storage'. With new technologies
such as ERP, ecommerce, data warehousing and business intelligence
dependent on data availability and data criticality; the importance
of having a sound and robust methodology to make the information
available across the enterprise is the biggest challenge of the
times. With data being so critical for the survival of the organization,
and businesses getting globally competitive and expansive, companies
and users worldwide are trying their best to leverage on the networks
for the storage requirements. This in turn will translate into strategic
decision support for their businesses. What the LAN did for resources
is expected from a network for storage devices. In simple words,
just as a printer caters to the requirements of the various clients
across the network as and when required, the ideal storage system
is expected to make itself available to whoever needs it at any
given point in time. At the same time it is independent of the servers,
hosts, networks, users or devices attached to the network.

Why
the need?

With the popularity of client-server computing, organizations have
gone on a buying spree without considering long-term consequences.
From hard disks to tapes, libraries, DATs, DLTs, CDs and MOs, there
has been a heterogeneous mix of data backup across the organization,
not to mention the multi-vendor, multi-platform existence in an
enterprise environment. And just when the backup needs to be restored,
it is either not found easily, with tapes and cartridges floating
all around, or takes hours or even days to restore. It thereby defeats
the whole purpose of the backup. All these factors set people thinking
about a more meaningful, automated and ideal storage system for
enterprises.

Evolution
of network storage