Mid-sized organizations have similar issues to large organizations when it comes to the storage and management of information and data, yet they often have limited capability to attract, retain and maintain the skills that large organizations will use in managing their data assets. There is a strong need for more effective tools that will enable mid-sized organizations to manage their data assets and gain the greatest value from them.
QUOCIRCA INSIGHT REPORT July 2007 Gaining Maximum Value from Contacts: Information and Data Clive Longbottom Quocirca Ltd Managing Intellectual Property Assets Tel +44 118 948 3360 clive.longbottom@quocirca.com Mid-sized organisations have similar issues to large organisations when it comes to the storage and management of information and data, yet they often have limited capability to Dennis Szubert attract, retain and maintain the skills that large organisations will use in managing their Quocirca Ltd data assets. There is a strong need for more effective tools that will enable mid-sized Tel +44 1753 855794 organisations to manage their data assets and gain the greatest value from them. dennis.szubert@quocirca.com Mid-sized organisations face many of the same storage problems as large organisations Vee Baker Storage volumes continue to grow at a rapid rate, and mid-sized organisations need to be able to EqualLogic, Inc. meet this growth in a fully manageable manner. Existing heterogeneous storage approaches with a Tel +44 20 7556 7878 vbaker@equallogic.com mix of direct attached storage (DAS) and shared folders on servers do not provide the flexibility and opportunities required for ongoing market competitiveness. Storage management needs are similar for mid-sized and large organisations Business continuity, disaster recovery, and data archiving are all major issues that mid-sized organisations have to deal with. With existing storage being spread across a range of different data silos, it is difficult to respond rapidly to data loss; and the impact of data loss or non-compliance with information governance requirements can be catastrophic to a mid-sized organisation. Storage area networks (SANs) are the optimum solution for managing such needs SAN technology has been proven as a strategic solution in large organisations, and a SAN approach offers several advantages to mid-sized organisations. The abstraction of the storage layer means that response times are more predictable and upgrading storage is more flexible and does not impact the running of the business. High-end SAN skills are at a premium SANs based on Fibre Channel (FC) technology require specific skills for implementation and ongoing maintenance. These skills are not easily available within the mid-market, and a REPORT NOTE: perception of complexity and high cost has grown up around the usage of SANs outside of the This report has been written independently by largest organisations. Quocirca Ltd to address IP-based SAN storage brings SAN capability within the reach of the mid-market certain issues found in today's organisations. The By utilising standard Ethernet-based technology, IP-based SANs lower the skills requirement for report draws on the implementation and running of SANs, making them a prime solution for the mid-market. Quocirca's extensive Bringing high-end SAN functionality into the reach of the mid-market yields direct business value knowledge of the through higher storage utilisation rates, less downtime, greater storage flexibility and the capacity technology and business to report across multiple data stores in an easier manner. arenas, and provides advice on the approach Virtualisation provides functionality for flexibility that organisations should The capability to create a single virtual view of all storage assets, combined with the capability to take to create a more use logical partitions to provide flexible "buckets" of storage for applications, allows for high effective and efficient levels of flexibility for organisations. environment for future growth. Conclusions SANs help to create a very flexible storage solution that provides a high degree of future-proofing for During the preparation of an organisation's storage needs. However, existing perceptions of complexity and high cost have this report, Quocirca has historically relegated SAN technology to only a few companies with large IT budgets in the mid-spoken to a number of suppliers and customers market. The advent of IP-based SAN technologies and the combination of standard Ethernet-based involved in the areas SAN connectivity with the decreasing cost of storage components now provide mid-sized organisation... [download for more]
