While SANs may be the Holy Grail for many businesses, maybe we
should spare a thought for the people whose job it is to build
them. James Rogers examines the impact of SANs
Once upon a time, IT managers tended to overlook the cost of
managing storage systems, sometimes bundling the price tag with
overall systems management. Not any more. Recent research from
analysts Frost & Sullivan suggests that they are coming round
to the idea that more efficient storage maintenance means reduced
IT costs.
Moreover, a proper storage strategy is now central to an
efficient IT operation. Ron Riffe Tivoli's storage strategy expert
explains: 'Fifteen years ago IT managers were faced with
out-of-control growth of their storage, and they were predicting
that they would reach a situation where humans couldn't control
that amount of data.
Now the humans are managing the storage, not the other way
round.' It seems that as a technology, Storage Area Networking is
poised to change the way that businesses manage and distribute
their data; something that could change IT infrastructures in a
similar way to the advent of LANs over a decade ago.
Put quite simply; SANs let IT managers and network
administrators externalise storage from the server, by attaching it
through a separate network. Steve Richardson, vice president of
marketing at Overland Data says: 'In addition to the performance
and availability advantages of SANs, the architecture also
streamlines the administration of storage resources.'
He continues: 'This addresses perhaps the most critical issue
facing IT managers; how to control storage management costs.'
Indeed, Richardson refers to research by International Data
Corporation (IDC), which estimates that a single storage
administrator can manage seven and a half times more data on a San
than on a decentralised storage system.
Certainly, it would appear that the advent of storage is already
changing the way that some IT departments function. Nigel Ghent, UK
marketing director at storage giant EMC comments: 'We are starting
to see the emergence of CSOs, or Chief Storage Officers.' This job
title is already prominent in the US and, according to some
industry figures, Europe is following suit. Appointing an expert to
look after your storage is one way of dealing with burgeoning
amounts of data, although a number of companies are turning to the
myriad of storage management software currently on offer.
Storage management software exists to ensure that users get the
most out of their SAN. It is no longer just enough to look at
storage in technical terms; most organisations are looking at their
IT departments from an increasingly business-orientated
perspective, something which has helped create a lucrative software
market. In this way, Frost and Sullivan states that storage
management software market revenues worldwide were $2400bn in 1999,
42.8 per cent up on the previous year.
Of course, such massive growth can bring problems, and IT
professionals are now faced with a plethora of different
technologies with which to build their SANs. One of the biggest
challenges facing IT managers today is to ensure that their storage
systems are interoperable. Whilst software provides the answer,
SANs still have the potential to complicate, rather than simplify,
the task of managing storage. Suresh Panikar, director of product
marketing at Raid Controller firm Mylex explains: 'Software is
important. You should look for software suites that provide
management capability, that will make their use much easier.'
A number of vendors, such as Tivoli and Hitachi Data Systems,
have already set up specialist operations to ease this transition.
For example, Tivoli has set up Tivoli Ready Programme, a partnering
organisation which is primarily focused on systems and systems
management. According to Riffe, the creation of the storage
division at Tivoli means that the company is now able to include
storage and San vendors in its partnership programme. There are
currently more than 1,000 IT management experts, service providers
and product partners involved in the initiative, with Tivoli,
claiming that it is capable of resolving almost any San dilemma
that its customers face.
The other side of the coin, however, is that a SAN may not
necessarily be the answer to your business needs. Analysts have
already highlighted that there is some confusion in the marketplace
about SANs, as a number of different vendors are taking different
approaches to the technology. It goes without saying that the
technology will be an infinitely more viable proposition once some
of the standards issues are resolved.
Once standards have been finalised and all the interoperability
issues resolved, SANs should take off. Indeed, IDC has already
predicted that Fibre Channel based SANs will experience more than
100 per cent compound annual growth over the next three years.