July 15, 2009, 7:22 PM — Companies may be putting IT spending on hold in an effort to weather the economic downturn, but the business-critical data they rely on to remain competitive continues to grow unabated.
On top of this, the practical ability for most companies to host more equipment to store and manage increased data is being severely impacted by the expectation that many data centers are rapidly running out of space while consuming mass quantities of power.
So, while firms need to grow their storage capacity, they lack the budget, physical space and energy supplies to do this. It's the perfect storage storm. For the budget-challenged IT manager, the need to do more with less has become a sudden and harsh reality.
Of course, companies won’t stop investing in storing and managing data. In fact, while Gartner, IDC and other market analyst firms predict overall declines in IT spending for the next 12 months, the one consistent area of IT growth is in storage.
The flight to efficiency
Storage efficiency is, naturally, being cited as one of the biggest drivers for companies determining their storage spend this year and beyond. This point was confirmed in a January 2009 study by analyst research firm Enterprise Strategy Group, titled “Enterprise Storage Priorities Emphasize Information and Infrastructure Efficiency.” This survey of 504 global storage professionals found that 34 percent of budget-conscious storage decisions in 2009 will be driven by efficiency. The survey also identified that specific efficiency-friendly technologies were among the top priorities for the next 24 months, with 21 percent of respondents ranking data reduction technologies as the most important initiative, 22 percent of respondents naming intelligent tiered storage, and 23 percent of respondents focusing on more power-efficient storage.
Interest in these technologies clearly indicates a growing trend - indeed a flight - towards efficiency. By boosting the efficiency of their storage infrastructures, companies can accommodate data growth within strictly limited budgets. And they can do all this using a smaller hardware footprint that consumes less physical space and, in turn, draws down less energy. When these technologies are combined, the compounded efficiencies can be dramatic and immediate. It’s not uncommon to see 90 percent utilization improvements over legacy storage capacities resulting in further significant reductions in energy needs.
It sounds simple enough but a major hurdle remains. Companies often find it difficult to break free from the traditional storage brands, now pilloried for their excessive inefficiencies, to which they’ve grown accustomed to using. They are also reluctant to move when they look back at the high investment in training and other costs they’ve incurred.
However, with the economy at the forefront of all major spending decision there is now much greater pressure on IT managers to explore new options that deliver greater efficiency. The historical reluctance to transition from the big brands is starting to erode as value and efficiency move to the top of the priority list.
Intelligent technology for extended efficiency
Of these technologies, intelligent tiered storage is often cited as the one with the most direct economic impact to the business. This includes tiered storage across entire systems as well as within the array itself; indeed, even down to individual disk platters. As Noemi Greyzdorf, senior analyst for storage management at IDC, recently explained in the white paper “Compellent Delivers Dynamic Tiered Storage That Reduces Companies’ Carbon Footprint,” tiering “enables administrators to leverage less expensive, slower spinning drives in conjunction with high-performing, fastspinning FC drives. Reducing the use of FC drives results in space, cost, and power and cooling savings.”
The ability to transparently automate the movement of data based on metrics such as frequency-of-use presents a significant advantage over traditional storage systems. Intelligent tiered storage also ensures that data movement is just as easy in both directions, with relegation to a lower tier if it isn't being accessed and promotion to a higher tier when it is. This is the bedrock for true storage efficiency and it applies to emerging high-performance storage technologies such as solid state drives (SSD). “In a world where just about everyone in IT is watching their budgets carefully, ‘efficiency’ and ‘optimization’ are watchwords,” said Mark Peters, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, in the “Compellent – Harnessing SSD’s Potential” white paper. “Data tiering can drive power consumption down 80% or more, as well as probably saving [capital expenditures].”
To truly reap the benefits of an efficient data center, IT managers need to ramp up their knowledge of intelligent tiered storage and implement the technology as a central platform for their future storage strategy. Not only will this help solve the immediate pain points associated with rapid data growth, space and energy, but it can just as directly benefit the company’s bottom line. In this period of economic uncertainty, a healthy obsession with efficiency will be the key to weathering the storm.
Bruce Kornfeld, Vice President of Marketing, Compellent
