Organizations in India have traditionally tended to invest in direct attached
storage (DAS). Today, Indian enterprises are increasingly shifting from DAS to
automated network storage (ANS). Hence, organizations are moving away from a
stovepiped architecture to creating a robust ANS infrastructure that is
server-independent.
Industry analysts forecast that by 2005, nearly 70 percent of all information
storage will be networked. It is ANS that allows organizations to reduce the
total cost of ownership through consolidation, control, capacity utilization and
centralized management. Doing away with information silos not only lowers
management complexity, but it also makes information more accessible across the
enterprise. The three dominant trends for the storage market that will drive
both the available technology options as well as influence strategic buying
decisions are
- Storage consolidation and networked storage
- Increasing demand for tools to manage information
- The rising complexity of IT, meeting service levels and ensuring business
continuity
Technology Trends
l NAS-SAN Convergence: The
NAS-SAN debate is gradually subsiding as both Indian enterprises and storage
vendors recognize the overall advantages of a networked storage model where NAS
and SAN complement each other. NAS provides high-speed file services to
networked clients, while SAN provides high-speed storage services to servers at
the block level on a neutral server platform. The fusion of NAS and SAN is an
emerging trend in Indian enterprises. The back end, which is an array of disks,
remains the same, and it can be used by both the technologies. The front-end can
be NAS or SAN. Hence, there is no need to replicate the disk array twice as the
array can be common for both NAS and SAN. This means cost savings and easier
management. The convergence of NAS and SAN would lead to better storage
solutions for enterprise customers. The fusion would remove misconceptions about
these technologies from the users’ minds. Together, they cater to possibly all
kinds of performance requirements an enterprise may have.
l Storage Consolidation: Today,
there are islands of information in organizations and managing them is a major
problem. Networked storage can consolidate not only the storage infrastructure,
but also the entire IT infrastructure. With industry analysts forecasting that
by 2005 nearly 70 percent of all information storage will be networked,
consolidation is set to become the buzzword in storage parlance. Organizations
are going for centralized automated backup and storage consolidation. It can
help in remote management, not changing media so often, lesser data loss
concerns and low total cost of ownership (TCO). Storage consolidation is a
logical fallout of NAS and SAN convergence. While SAN shares storage resources
through a common network, NAS shares files through an IP network. By uniting the
two, files can be accessed through NAS and delivered through SAN thus providing
a new topology–consolidation or shared storage.
l Storage Virtualization: One
of the most important trends in the storage space is that customers will see
more and more of their storage assets being virtualized. This trend towards
virtualization will result in an overall lower cost of managed storage for the
customers. There will be a gradual blurring of the lines between storage
virtualization and server virtualization. Multiple OSs will run simultaneously
and independently on the same Intel-based server or workstation. These ‘virtual
machines’ integrate seamlessly into existing physical infrastructures and
management frameworks, allowing users to see resources as if they were dedicated
to them, while CIOs manage and optimize those resources globally across the
enterprise.
Over time, virtualization will not be seen as a specific product; it will be
seen as a set of underlying storage capabilities: layered functionality at each
level that helps management tools do a better job of managing. Operating system
management (OSM) will combine underlying functionality with lower-level
abstractions that simplify the management of complex storage environments. An
OSM infrastructure will be able to harness functionality at each level and make
the user-visible storage management tools even more powerful.
l Enterprise Storage
Automation: Storage management is managing storage assets with an eye
towards maximizing application availability, service levels, speed, and
flexibility. Storage management practices encompass the policies, user
activities, system processes, and workflow by which one delivers information
management services across the storage network. Automation improves the quality,
consistency, and responsiveness of storage infrastructure.
Enterprises are leveraging storage management tools in order to reduce costs
through enhanced operational efficiency. A single view of all information
resources fosters revenue creation and inspires operational efficiency, in turn
driving the business forward. Significant efficiencies are gained through
greater integration of hardware and software. For many Indian enterprises,
capacity utilization is typically poor, leaving a large percentage of storage
resources unutilized. If effectively used, storage management tools can help
keep track of capacity utilization and enable organizations to take relevant
decisions on future acquisitions of storage requirements.
Industry standards usually help enterprises mix and match best-of-breed
storage management systems. Accordingly, organizations like the Storage
Networking Industry Association (SNIA) have come up with some standards like
Storage Management Interface Specifications. Though adequate standards to ensure
interoperability and management of heterogeneous software and hardware devices
are yet to be developed, significant initiatives have been taken through the
common information model (CIM) and Bluefin initiatives. CIM is an
object-oriented information model, which provides a conceptual framework for
describing the management data.
l iSCSI Standard: Suitable
interconnects like the iSCSI, which ensure smooth data accessibility and
availability are gaining momentum. The iSCSI specification has been frozen this
year and all vendors have been developing products around this technology. iSCSI
is still in the nascent stage of the introduction cycle. Many users do not yet
know whether it will be appropriate for their organizations. This cycle is
likely to continue for another 18 months to two years before adoption becomes
widespread. Enterprises will use iSCSI to consolidate backup from remote sites
and servers.
iSCSI SANs are most suitable for organizations with a need for streamlining
large amounts of data to store and transmit over the network such as ISPs,
organizations geographically distributed, and organizations that need remote
data replication and disaster recovery. There are a number of advantages of
using iSCSI for SAN. One is that fiber channel uses a host bus adapter (for
network interfacing), which is four times as costly as a network interface card.
iSCSI uses IP technology that is easily understood and widely deployed. Using
iSCSI, enterprises can do both file and block access over IP, that was not
possible earlier. Enterprise customers need not invest separately for file and
block access any longer. The other advantage of using IP is that enterprises can
connect at speeds up to 10 Gbps. Fiber channels cannot be used over long
distances and are limited to10 km.
l Information-lifecycle
Management: Many enterprises want greater ability to ‘virtualize’
storage devices and systems. They want to treat their storage as a single pool
of resources that can be allocated and reallocated as needed. They also want
better tools to automate the management of data from creation to deletion or
long-term storage. This has given rise to the concept of information-life-cycle
management (ILM). ILM–the notion that data should be stored accordingly as its
value changes over time–is the next phase of storage evolution. It begins with
tactical ILM–tiered, targeted implementations at ‘pain points’ such as
e-mail and large databases.
Information made available to the business, when the business needs it, helps
meet new archiving requirements, mitigate risks, realize operational cost
savings, improves data and application availability, and increases business
agility. Currently, these are issues faced by CIOs. The ILM strategy helps the
user to contain and reduce costs through the use of services, improved and
increased utilization of storage, reduced storage complexity and by leveraging
and protecting past hardware investments. ILM can help increase application
availability, reduce downtime and improve performance by dynamically managing
data throughout its lifecycle while simultaneously placing data in virtualized
storage pools to meet business and legal requirements.
l Asynchronous Replication: Another
upcoming trend is asynchronous replication, which dramatically reduces bandwidth
requirements. Instead of replicating the entire track, the technology enables
the replication of data at the sector level. As a result, if there is a change
only in a particular sector, only that will be replicated to the remote site
instead of the whole track. Copying at the smallest possible unit helps not only
in reduced bandwidth requirements, but also improves manageability.
l Content Addressed Storage (CAS):
The biggest need in the world of storage today, is of technology and
products to deal with ‘fixed storage’. According to a study by the
University of California at Berkeley, the world produces between 1—2 billion
GB of unique information annually, with three-quarters of that being archival
storage–content in its final form that should not be altered. Dealing with
this deluge of data, and extracting, protecting, and storing the information
contained within, is something that every CIO is learning today. That is because
archiving is only part of the problem. Archived data is not just stored and
ignored. Hospitals need to access their archived patient records, banks access
archived check records, and archived Internet content could be subject to
millions of accesses per day. Access, of course, provides opportunities for
hackers, and that makes archival storage, which has potential to be one of the
largest niche markets, a security nightmare.
This rapid accumulation of fixed content demands a new category of storage
designed for the secure, online storage and retrieval of such information for
years and years–content addressed storage (CAS). Rather than access a data
object by its file name at a physical location, a CAS device uses a content
address to store and retrieve the object. Because content often accumulates
without any upper limit, a CAS repository must be extremely easy to scale to
even a Petabyte (1,024 terabytes), while maintaining a sub-second access
performance.
l Fabric-attached Storage (FAS):
The cost considerations related to various storage architectures has led to FAS,
a more economical and efficient storage architecture. FAS is a combination of
SAN and NAS that can be utilized by plugging in a card into the server. The
server then communicates the storage through the fiber into the repository. The
biggest benefit of FAS is that it uses open protocols and is platform
independent. This allows easy interoperability. In the current market conditions
where most high-end SAN solutions are proprietary, FAS has a good chance of
emerging as a popular choice among Indian enterprises.
BUYING TIPS
BUYING TIPS
According to a survey by SoundView on the top storage purchase priorities,
the primary reasons that CIOs consider while enhancing their storage are:
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Support for new applications
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Capacity/refresh
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Disaster recovery (backup/replication)
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Archiving/compliance
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Storage management
If that is what is driving their purchase decisions, then
from an information infrastructure perspective, enterprises should identify a
storage solution based on how it can
-
Boost productivity and growth without discarding previous
investments -
Lower TCO
-
Improve utilization of the network
-
Elevate service levels
-
Report back to business quickly to ensure best RoI
To help accomplish this, enterprises must focus their
attention on some critical qualities that ultimately drive the storage buying
strategies for enterprises.
Strategies of Leading Storage Vendors |
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l Lower Costs:
With networked storage, users can share from a common pool, resulting in
increased storage utilization while reducing the total amount of storage that
organizations need to buy and manage. Moreover, networked storage allows
consolidation of servers by reducing the amount of file servers and taking away
the need to buy more servers just to hold more disks. A study conducted by
McKinsey and Merrill Lynch points to 47 cents per MB TCO advantage for networked
storage over the traditional DAS approach.
l Protect IT
Investment: Using server-based storage means that the disks are likely to be
thrown out every time an upgrade is done. With networked storage, SMEs can
protect their investments by reassigning volumes as needs change. They can look
for modular networked storage systems that allow data-in-place upgrades without
disruption, so that users can update storage processors and interchange
components with data in place.
l Reduce
Backup/Restore Time: The ability to backup, store, access, and restore
information quickly and efficiently has a direct impact on the company’s daily
operations and ensuring business continuity.
l Speed
Application Testing and Data Migration: Application testing and data
migration are facts of corporate life, but these should not adversely affect
service levels. A consolidated information infrastructure makes information
instantly available, changeable, and easily shared throughout the organization.
Mirroring software allows users to run a number of operations in parallel for
testing without disrupting operations.
l Safeguard
Information: When a server goes down, its data goes with it. And, restoring
from tape can take hours or even days, halting important business functions.
Consolidation allows for one standard way of business continuity, instead of
multiple ways in a distributed environment.
l Modularity:
Robust modularity ensures that as innovative technology is developed, you can
update storage processors and interchange components with data in place.
Modularity guarantees that future software and hardware upgrades are compatible
between generations, allowing flexibility for the system to be deployed and
re-deployed, as the business needs change. EMC, for example, offers an option to
cost sensitive enterprises to migrate from a low-end solution to a high-end
product seamlessly when their information requirements grow.
l Automated
and Open Storage Management Software: Enterprises should select open storage
management software that work across multi-vendor environments to consolidate
storage and servers. Software can play a major part in reducing cost by
automating manual storage tasks so you can free up valuable IT resources and
labor to be deployed for more productive tasks.
l Interoperability:
Enterprises should select a reliable and open platform vendor. The
information infrastructure impacts every part of the IT environment, from
applications, servers to databases. It is important to ensure that every device
works well with the others. Enterprises must assess vendor claims, by finding
out how much the company spends on ensuring interoperability. And how good is
their service infrastructure and channel structure.
Market Information
According to IDC, the Indian storage (hardware) industry was pegged at
$119.6 million by end 2003, a growth of 14 percent over its size of $103.1
million in 2002. In terms of storage volumes, the market stood at 3762.2 TB by
the end of 2003, a growth of about 5 percent over 2239.4 TB in 2002.
The size of data is expected to grow at a CAGR of 63 percent
year-on-year for the 2002—07 time frame. The storage software market witnessed
a growth of 45 percent to end at $17 million in 2003 from $12 million in 2002.
On the other hand, the Garner report predicts that the overall storage systems
market will grow to $425.8 million in 2005–a CAGR of 26 percent. The report
also states that SAN will account for 49 percent and NAS for 32 percent of the
storage revenue pie in India by 2005.
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Business Continuity: Driving Storage Demand
At the centerpiece of any disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity
management (BCM) plan lies the need to protect and fortify data in the event of
a disaster. This is because today data lies at the heart of any 24x7x365
operation, which is what BCM is all about. The role of a storage system becomes
more crucial in an organization when there is a need to protect information.
Starting from ‘simple backups’ to ‘faster restores’, to high
availability of data and application–storage systems have become a key
component in any DR/BCM planning.
The extra demand for storage is generated on account of replication of data
from the primary site to a remote location. A copy of production data is
constantly maintained at the secondary site and in the event of a disaster,
business operations are transferred to the secondary site. The first phase of
replication is that of data, after which comes replication of processing power
and the network.
In addition to the demand generated for more raw storage capacity, DR/BCM are
also driving the market for storage-based disaster recovery software, as well as
storage management software and storage services. Non-storage-based DR
implementations involve basic server-based file transfers to remote locations,
which is not really a foolproof way of implementing business-critical DR or
business continuity.
Both DR and BCM are going to drive the market for large high-end projects in
the storage segment. Increasingly, high-end projects, especially in SAN, will be
coming from BCM in the future. The involvement is much more in BCM and the
project implementation level is high. When you have to connect from one
environment to another and across the country, it has to be project-driven. This
growing trend will put an emphasis on service skills and not just on
box-selling. In such a scenario, it is the storage vendors who will evolve an
end-to-end robust storage solution. The quest for end-to-end capabilities will
further drive greater solutions inter-operatability and technology tie-ups.
While generally there is a time lag of around 1—2 years between setting up
of a primary data center and a secondary remote site, the coming year is going
to see customers who are planning to go for their secondary set-up along with
the setting up the primary site, which will further boost demand for storage.