August 20, 2003, 10:15 AM — Here's a prediction for our readers: in the next six months, everywhere you see the word storage, you'll also see the words management and lifecycle. Some pundits may throw in the word information to keep things interesting. But what does it mean to you? How will high-concept frameworks improve your storage and backup operations?
Frameworks and concepts are fine as far as they go, but they're not easy to apply to your business. We've found that what our clients and partners are looking for is more than a concept - they're looking for proven tools that can be used as they map current technology investments, user requirements, and data growth rates to paint a picture of what they'll need going forward. The users we speak with realize that it's essential to understand the true costs - and value - of storage. The days of buying disks and jamming them into the data center are over.
To answer our clients' questions, GlassHouse Technologies developed a framework of storage policies and procedures, the Storage Management Lifecycle SM (SML). The SML is more than a marketing concept: it's a tool that helps IT managers match storage expenditures to business risk by defining the activities, policies and procedures necessary to support real-world storage operations.
The SML breaks storage activities into four categories: Demand planning, provisioning, operations and customer care. Each contains a subset of activities, with related policies and procedures. IT managers can use the SML to identify each stage of their operations and measure the effectiveness of their environments against the SML's 70 activities.
The SML helps IT managers make the business case for investments in storage. It is particularly useful as a yardstick against which to measure the technologies you're considering buying. Unlike other theoretical frameworks and lifecycle models, the SML describes IT roles and responsibilities, tying these to standard operating procedures that allow you to set, and deliver, to service level agreements with your business clients. By measuring your storage environment against a tool such as the SML you'll be able to identify areas for improvement in policies, processes and procedures, with the potential for a significant return on investment for operations - all while building the logic for continued investment.
The SML is more than just another idea - it's already been adopted by large storage OEMs, software development organizations, and end users in financial services and biotechnology. As you think about ways to improve operations and rationalize investments in storage, consider using the Storage Management Lifecycle as a starting point for the analysis.
