Users get "excited" over storage vendors, technologies

Which vendors or technologies come to mind when you think about “exciting” storage products and services? According to IT industry research firm TheInfoPro (TIP), storage professionals in Fortune 1000 and midsize enterprises definitely have an answer to that question.

The firm’s latest research on storage adoption plans, management strategies, and vendor performance has been released and more than 250 Fortune 1000 and midsize end users say they are turning their attention to vendors that provide de-duplication, thin provisioning, virtualized provisioning, and capacity optimization technologies, according to TIP’s managing director of storage research, Robert Stevenson.

As a result, NetApp and Data Domain have seen the largest increase in mentions. Both vendors offer data de-duplication technologies and coincidentally each has pushed further into the de-dupe market over the past couple of days.

NetApp, which already offers de-duplication for primary storage via its Data ONTAP operating system announced this week that de-dupe is now available for its family of NetApp Virtual Tape Library (VTL) systems. Also, Data Domain this week entered a partnership with F5 Networks to co-market a joint solution that automates the movement of static and archive data from primary storage to a secondary storage tier. The joint offering will combine the de-dupe capabilities of Data Domain’s disk-based storage systems with the F5 ARX series of file virtualization devices.

Stevenson says his “Wave 11 Time Series Storage Study” shows that end users are looking for SAN architectures that are more active in managing storage utilization. It makes sense since the top technology in end users plans is once again data de-duplication, which has been dominating TIP’s list for more than a year.

Overall, Fortune 1000 users gave EMC the nod as the most exciting storage vendor followed by NetApp, Data Domain, IBM and 3PAR, while midsize users surveyed listed Data Domain, 3PAR, Compellent, EMC and HDS as their top five most exciting vendors.