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