Behind the Storage Numbers

While reviewing the results of the just-released ZDME 2003 Storage Buying study, I noticed something was a bit odd. Although the average enterprise has seen storage demand increase, and expects to do so in the future, the percentage of companies that planned to buy specific technologies – such as DAS, SANs, or storage resource management software, seemed a bit low, which was also the case for the last such study we did about a year ago.

Well, if people are buying all kinds of storage, which they obviously are, then why aren't they planning for it? For many enterprises, unplanned storage purchases are an almost everyday task.

It's all about what drives growth – between the leap in digital content, which can clog email-boxes with scores or hundreds of the same (choose your own – presentation, video clip, executable program, etc), and the desire to keep archives of everything – even mailboxes and instant message streams – whether or not due to government regulation, well, companies are just plum running out of storage for some applications and users.

Over half – 57% of end-users said they had developed new budget ( read unplanned purchase ) for a major storage purchase last year. And in the current economic climate, you can be sure these were critical purchases, not whims.

Digital content and archival requirements are just the beginning, though. As even SMB companies seek to enhance their on-line capabilities for customer self-service, better employee information, and data interchange with their suppliers and major customers, the 24 x 7 nature of the internet demands storage systems with higher availability, more redundancy, and better automation and management tools. The move to higher availability levels and better SLAs is a major driver of new storage deployment.

So the good news is we continue to see a drop in the price of raw, unmanaged storage. Unfortunately, the growth in the amount of new storage continually needed coupled with the increase in applications needing access to highly available, networked storage means that storage systems are getting more complex. Add to the existing SAN and NAS deployments new iSCSI and gigE, and the lines blur and the eyes water when trying to manage who's using what storage for which applications.

Storage Automation solutions, that can adapt to an enterprise's policies and practices, are one way to help fight the battle to efficiently serve the seemingly insatiable storage needs users have, and there are a growing number of SRM and automation solutions that are hoping to help satisfy that demand, but there is also a lack of awareness of many of these vendors and offerings.

So, looking behind the numbers, even though most IT budgets remain flat, the opportunity still remains to meet the unplanned need that invariably occurs.

For more information on the 2003 Ziff Davis Storage Buying study, send me an email at [email protected].

Copyright © 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Market Experts.