A New Look at Storage Consolidation

Storage Consolidation:

Storage consolidation is a term that has typically meant the consolidation of direct attached storage to a storage network, whether it is Network Attached Storage (NAS) or Storage Area Network (SAN). Storage Consolidation has usually been undertaken to improve utilization of assets, lower the total cost of ownership (TCO), increase return on capital investment, improve IT operational efficiency and increase service levels.

The cost of acquiring networked storage hardware has been dropping, and is continuing to fall quarter after quarter. In addition, the service levels and the accessibility of networked storage have improved. Despite these promising developments, reduction of the overall TCO has been hampered by the increasing complexity of managing the networked storage. Furthermore, consolidation of storage has only partially been achieved due to concerns about risks associated with change propagation, costs associated with incorporating low cost servers into the storage network, and isolation of applications in SAN and NAS islands.

As an industry study by GlassHouse Technologies indicates, the average utilization rate of storage environments is approximately 25%. This study demonstrates that, while the industry is improving efficiency by moving to networked storage, enterprises are still not realizing the full savings potential. Furthermore, business agility is impacted because new applications cannot always gain access to available capacity in a timely fashion. The consolidated storage or the pools of storage and networks are isolated, preventing rapid deployment and delaying the anticipated benefits of the new application.

This requires the definition of storage consolidation to extend to include the integration of isolated storage networks and tiers of storage services.

IDC has recognized the need for an overall unified management solution: "As servers and storage systems are closely inter-linked, there is an increasing shift towards networked solutions to create a more efficient infrastructure. Storage software, such as SAN and NAS management software, storage consolidated resource management software, automated backup software and unifying management solutions will therefore play an increasingly important role. This is a prevalent trend in today's market, and IDC predicts that it will intensify in the coming years."

Managing Storage Consolidated Resources

Fortunately, enterprise storage groups don't have to face these challenges alone. Companies like Cisco Systems and CreekPath Systems are leading the charge in helping their customers manage their data and consolidate their resources.