In a recent study conducted by ESG in September 2006, we asked 45 large Enterprise customers if and when their organizations would deploy a storage virtualization solution. As shown in Figure One, 44% of respondents expect to implement storage virtualization within the next 12 months, 22% within the next 24 months and 7% in greater than 24 months. If you add in the 7% that are already using storage virtualization, then a total of 80% of the companies we surveyed will utilize storage virtualization within their data centers.
In an earlier study, ESG surveyed 210 IT decision-makers about evaluating and purchasing storage networking technologies to see who is considering an intelligent storage network solution and why. For the purposes of this study, ESG defined intelligence in the storage network as “a solution that provides storage services like storage virtualization, volume management, data migration, and data replication that execute directly on network-resident devices such as SAN switches or purpose-built appliances as opposed to hosts or storage subsystems”.
We learned that 21% of respondents had already deployed some form of intelligent storage network solution. Based on our research, we concluded that overall SAN size and complexity, characterized by multiple SAN fabrics, many ports and large capacities, are the driving forces behind early intelligent fabric implementations. For example, 49% of respondents with 6 or more fabrics and 37% of users with greater than 100 TB of storage capacity had already deployed an intelligent storage network.
Next we looked into why these early adopters invested in this emerging technology. The number one reason users cited for adopting intelligence in the fabric was to “simplify the management of storage resources.” Other top reasons cited were to improve the ability to provision storage and to better utilize storage resources. These data points indicate that intelligent fabric solutions are being used to address the management challenges inherent in large, complex and heterogeneous SAN environments.
One of the most significant findings – if not the most significant – is the substantial economic benefit of deploying an intelligent storage network solution. For example, 79% of early adopters with a large SAN believe they have reduced their annual storage hardware spending to some degree, with these users reporting a mean average annual savings of 19.7%. As shown in Figure Two, storage hardware savings were the most significant due to the ability to reclaim and re-use storage already owned (the least expensive storage is the storage you already have). Consolidating storage software that previously ran on multiple servers or storage systems onto a centrally managed infrastructure also helped reduce storage software spending and storage administration costs.
ESG Lab Validation Analysis
ESG Lab did hands-on analysis of the IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) storage virtualization solution in order to validate its value proposition to customers. This ESG Lab report focuses on the following features and functions of IBM SVC:
- Heterogeneous Interoperability
- Ease of Integration and Management
- Data Migration and Copy Services
- Scalability and Performance
- Disaster Avoidance using Metro and Global Mirror
- Fault Tolerance and Serviceability
The goal of ESG Lab testing of the IBM SVC was to validate the fundamentals of network based storage virtualization including ease of use and non-disruptive virtualization, data mobility and copy services. ESG Lab found that the IBM SVC is a rock-solid, feature-rich platform that delivers on the promise of network based storage virtualization – SVC reduces the complexity and cost of managing SAN attached storage.
ESG Lab Validation
ESG Lab validation of the SVC virtualization platform was performed over two days of hands-on-testing at an IBM facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The test bed used during the initial phase of the validation is shown in Figure Three and documented in the Appendix. Separate test beds used to test Metro and Global Mirroring are presented later in this report.
SVC was used to provide storage virtualization services on each of the operating systems and storage systems shown here during the ESG Lab Validation. Host Bus Adapters from Qlogic and MDS switches from Cisco were used for SAN server connectivity and switching.
