March 11, 2010 -- Unstructured data is becoming the reigning storage hog in the data center as the network-attached storage (NAS) market continues to grow, while the market for block-access, controller-based disk arrays continues to decline, according to the latest numbers from Gartner.
According to the research firm's latest report ("Quarterly Statistics: Disk Array Storage, All Regions, All Countries, 4Q09 Update") the external controller-based (ECB) disk storage market took a severe hit as the economic downturn whacked the market for an 8.6% year-over-year decline from $18 billion in 2008 to $16.3 billion in 2009 – the first annual decline for the market since 2002.
Gartner research vice president, Roger Cox, says the large monolithic/frame-based disk array market declined 21.1%, and for the first time since Gartner has been reporting on the ECB disk storage market, the segment represented less than 30% of the total market.
Cox says, "This result, in part, reflects the advancements that the lower-cost modular disk array systems have made in performance and capacity scalability, as well as robust data services associated with local and remote replication."
Gartner says unstructured data growth is boosting the NAS market as the segment grew 1.4% in '09, while the block-access modular ECB disk storage segment declined 2.8%. The special purpose disk archiving system segment experienced a big drop-off, falling 31.6% in revenue.
EMC remained the market leader in 2009, in part because of its leadership in the monolithic/frame-based, block access modular disk array and special-purpose disk archiving storage systems markets and the acquisition of Data Domain. IBM is second in market share, growing 11.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the report.
Gartner ECB disk storage reports reflect hardware-only revenue, as well as hardware revenue associated with financial leases and managed services.
On a related note, IDC recently released its latest Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker report that shows the external and internal disk array markets experienced the first year-over-year growth since the third quarter of 2008. The report also states that the NAS and iSCSI SAN array markets posted modest year-over-year growth (See Dave Simpson's latest blog: "Who are the top 5 array vendors?").
For more info on the ECB disk storage market, check out the full report on Gartner's website. The report includes vendor market share by data access method, price band, channel and operating system segmentation.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
SGI snaps up Copan's assets for $2 million
February 26, 2010 -- In a deal that flew under the radar, SGI announced this week that it has purchased what is left of defunct virtual tape library (VTL) vendor Copan Systems for a price of about $2 million – that's right – $2 million.
SGI gobbled up Copan's assets in a private foreclosure sale from Copan's secured creditors. SGI did not assume any debt of Copan in the acquisition and assumed a limited number of liabilities.
Copan's claim to fame was its energy-efficient Enterprise MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) technology for long-term storage of persistent data and its ability to power down disk drives when not in use.
"In my mind, they were a bit of a one-trick pony in that they had a purpose-built platform that incorporated MAID with drive spin-down," says Forrester Research senior analyst Andrew Reichman.
According to Reichman's research, the power benefits didn't match to cost of the system.
"It didn't take off because the power cost of 100TB of storage is about 1% of acquiring that 100TB. It's a drop in the bucket," he says. "What's more, most of the data center buyers are different than the facilities team and therefore don't pay the power bill. That put a barrier in place."
The surprising piece of this puzzle is the price tag. Two million seems a bit low for a company that raised more than $100 million in five rounds of funding, the most recent of which came about a year ago. That's a lot of money lost for Copan's investors.
Reichman believes SGI bought Copan at a bargain basement price in the hopes of using the technology down the line.
Copan's offices in Longmont, Colo., will be retained, and SGI "intends to hire select Copan employees," according to the company.
Reichman thinks Copan customers should start thinking about migrating their data.
"I've talked to customers and, not surprisingly, they're concerned. It's a bad situation to be in. I hate to leave gear with usable life on the table, but my message to [users] is to start with a migration plan now to move off of the [platform]," he says.
SGI's CEO, Mark J. Barrenechea, outlined its plans for the Copan technology earlier this week in a letter to customers on the SGI website. Barrenechea wrote:
"The Copan assets will allow us to provide our customers access to Copan's approach to data backup, recovery, and active archive. Copan products are based on an Enterprise MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) platform, which is ideally suited of solutions like Virtual Tape Libraries (VTL), Disk-to-Disk (D2D) backup and HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management). When integrated into the SGI InfiniteStorage Total Control Suite with software like DMF and LiveArc, as well as our high performance NAS, SAN and bulk storage solutions, SGI has increased the ability of our customers to fully exploit the value of their data."
Are you a Copan customer? Sound off! Drop us a line with your questions or concerns.
SGI gobbled up Copan's assets in a private foreclosure sale from Copan's secured creditors. SGI did not assume any debt of Copan in the acquisition and assumed a limited number of liabilities.
Copan's claim to fame was its energy-efficient Enterprise MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) technology for long-term storage of persistent data and its ability to power down disk drives when not in use.
"In my mind, they were a bit of a one-trick pony in that they had a purpose-built platform that incorporated MAID with drive spin-down," says Forrester Research senior analyst Andrew Reichman.
According to Reichman's research, the power benefits didn't match to cost of the system.
"It didn't take off because the power cost of 100TB of storage is about 1% of acquiring that 100TB. It's a drop in the bucket," he says. "What's more, most of the data center buyers are different than the facilities team and therefore don't pay the power bill. That put a barrier in place."
The surprising piece of this puzzle is the price tag. Two million seems a bit low for a company that raised more than $100 million in five rounds of funding, the most recent of which came about a year ago. That's a lot of money lost for Copan's investors.
Reichman believes SGI bought Copan at a bargain basement price in the hopes of using the technology down the line.
Copan's offices in Longmont, Colo., will be retained, and SGI "intends to hire select Copan employees," according to the company.
Reichman thinks Copan customers should start thinking about migrating their data.
"I've talked to customers and, not surprisingly, they're concerned. It's a bad situation to be in. I hate to leave gear with usable life on the table, but my message to [users] is to start with a migration plan now to move off of the [platform]," he says.
SGI's CEO, Mark J. Barrenechea, outlined its plans for the Copan technology earlier this week in a letter to customers on the SGI website. Barrenechea wrote:
"The Copan assets will allow us to provide our customers access to Copan's approach to data backup, recovery, and active archive. Copan products are based on an Enterprise MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) platform, which is ideally suited of solutions like Virtual Tape Libraries (VTL), Disk-to-Disk (D2D) backup and HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management). When integrated into the SGI InfiniteStorage Total Control Suite with software like DMF and LiveArc, as well as our high performance NAS, SAN and bulk storage solutions, SGI has increased the ability of our customers to fully exploit the value of their data."
Are you a Copan customer? Sound off! Drop us a line with your questions or concerns.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Cisco-HP partnership implodes
February 19, 2010 -- Months of rumored bad blood between Cisco and HP has finally boiled over as InfoStor has learned that Cisco Systems will not renew its System Integrator contract with HP.
Citing "changes in the IT landscape and the evolving role of the network and the implications to our partnering strategy with HP," Keith Goodwin, senior vice president of Cisco's Worldwide Partner Organization, said Cisco recently notified HP that it will not renew its System Integrator contract when it expires on April 30, 2010, resulting in HP no longer being a Cisco Certified Channel or Global Service Alliance partner.
The statement was made in a video blog posted on Cisco's website late last night and appears to be the result of a flurry of activity sparked by John Furrier's siliconAngle blog yesterday morning.
Upon reading John's blog, I fired off questions to both Cisco and HP. While Cisco did not respond directly to my questions, it's safe to say Goodwin answered them – and then some – in his video missive.
Goodwin went on to say "[Cisco is] taking this action to be transparent to both partners and customers – we will compete with HP for future business."
HP supplied me with a written statement late yesterday. However, in all fairness, they had yet to see Goodwin's blog on Cisco.com.
HP's statement is as follows:
"History has proven that customers and the market demand both co-opetition and collaboration between IT vendors. Most major players compete in one deal, and partner in others to best serve the client's needs. We do not believe it is in the customer's best interest to take a proprietary stance.
We will provide clients with consulting, integration, management and support services for their heterogeneous environments and ensure that our hardware and software platforms are optimized for all leading networking platforms.
Our strategy and platforms will continue to be market driven to create advantage today and into the future for our clients."
So what does this mean for customers?
Goodwin said Cisco has reached out to HP to start discussing a "new agreement that ensures business continuity for existing customers and better reflects the current state of our relationship."
He also maintained that Cisco will honor existing customer service contracts with HP for their duration.
"Our commitment is clear: we will continue to work with HP wherever our customers expect it and where it makes sense for our business," he said.
A brief history of the HP-Cisco shadow war
Cisco seems to have started this tussle with its entry into the server market in March 2009 with the debut of Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS), which combines compute, network, storage access, and virtualization resources in a single system based on a new line of blade servers developed by Cisco.
Cisco's move into the server market caused some waves across the industry and left many partners – most notably HP – with a lot of questions.
Cisco added to the UCS platform last October with the launch of UCS rack-mount servers, memory extension technology, and a line of converged network adapters (CNAs).
Subsequently, HP made some big moves of its own. Last November, the company put its own twist on unified computing with the announcement of the HP Converged Infrastructure Architecture and a set of associated services and partner offerings that create a virtualized, on-demand data center.
HP then added to its own arsenal with the $2.7 billion to acquisition of networking vendor 3Com, as HP continued on its path toward data center convergence.
The latest move from HP was yesterday's announcement of a new deal with QLogic, under which HP will is now selling QLogic's 5800V and 5802V Series stackable 8Gbps Fibre Channel switches.
What's your take on this whole mess? Drop us a line: kevink@pennwell.com.
Citing "changes in the IT landscape and the evolving role of the network and the implications to our partnering strategy with HP," Keith Goodwin, senior vice president of Cisco's Worldwide Partner Organization, said Cisco recently notified HP that it will not renew its System Integrator contract when it expires on April 30, 2010, resulting in HP no longer being a Cisco Certified Channel or Global Service Alliance partner.
The statement was made in a video blog posted on Cisco's website late last night and appears to be the result of a flurry of activity sparked by John Furrier's siliconAngle blog yesterday morning.
Upon reading John's blog, I fired off questions to both Cisco and HP. While Cisco did not respond directly to my questions, it's safe to say Goodwin answered them – and then some – in his video missive.
Goodwin went on to say "[Cisco is] taking this action to be transparent to both partners and customers – we will compete with HP for future business."
HP supplied me with a written statement late yesterday. However, in all fairness, they had yet to see Goodwin's blog on Cisco.com.
HP's statement is as follows:
"History has proven that customers and the market demand both co-opetition and collaboration between IT vendors. Most major players compete in one deal, and partner in others to best serve the client's needs. We do not believe it is in the customer's best interest to take a proprietary stance.
We will provide clients with consulting, integration, management and support services for their heterogeneous environments and ensure that our hardware and software platforms are optimized for all leading networking platforms.
Our strategy and platforms will continue to be market driven to create advantage today and into the future for our clients."
So what does this mean for customers?
Goodwin said Cisco has reached out to HP to start discussing a "new agreement that ensures business continuity for existing customers and better reflects the current state of our relationship."
He also maintained that Cisco will honor existing customer service contracts with HP for their duration.
"Our commitment is clear: we will continue to work with HP wherever our customers expect it and where it makes sense for our business," he said.
A brief history of the HP-Cisco shadow war
Cisco seems to have started this tussle with its entry into the server market in March 2009 with the debut of Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS), which combines compute, network, storage access, and virtualization resources in a single system based on a new line of blade servers developed by Cisco.
Cisco's move into the server market caused some waves across the industry and left many partners – most notably HP – with a lot of questions.
Cisco added to the UCS platform last October with the launch of UCS rack-mount servers, memory extension technology, and a line of converged network adapters (CNAs).
Subsequently, HP made some big moves of its own. Last November, the company put its own twist on unified computing with the announcement of the HP Converged Infrastructure Architecture and a set of associated services and partner offerings that create a virtualized, on-demand data center.
HP then added to its own arsenal with the $2.7 billion to acquisition of networking vendor 3Com, as HP continued on its path toward data center convergence.
The latest move from HP was yesterday's announcement of a new deal with QLogic, under which HP will is now selling QLogic's 5800V and 5802V Series stackable 8Gbps Fibre Channel switches.
What's your take on this whole mess? Drop us a line: kevink@pennwell.com.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Cloud computing courses cropping up
February 5, 2010 -- UC Irvine has become the latest school to add cloud computing to its curriculum as the concept continues to gain steam in the IT industry. However, the momentum of the cloud seems to be vendor-driven as recent research shows end user customers are still hesitant or unwilling to turn storage over to the cloud.
This week, the University of California, Irvine Extension announced a new eight-week online course titled "Cloud Computing," beginning Monday, April 12. According to the school, "the course was created to arm participants with an advanced level of knowledge and hands-on experience in understanding, designing and implementing a cloud-based software system."
Specifically, the course will outline current industry techniques and practices, future challenges and survey applications deployed by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The aim is to arm students with "an understanding of cloud computing models, techniques and architectures, and its application by providers in delivering common business functions such as data storage, computing resources and messaging online."
UC Irvine is not alone. There are a wealth of cloud computing resources and courses cropping up on the Web. UC Berkeley has the cloud on its radar and IT education companies like Stratos Learning and Plularsight also offer cloud-related courses. Not to mention the storage industry's efforts including the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA) Cloud Storage Initiative.
It's no surprise that cloud technologies are finding their way into the realm of higher learning, but is the cloud phenomenon a result of industry hype or end user interest when it comes to cloud storage?
Editor-in-Chief Dave Simpson highlighted some interesting research from Forrester that points to the former. In his recent piece, "Survey: Users not very interested in cloud storage," Dave cites a Forrester survey that shows about 43% of the respondents said that they were categorically "not interested" in adopting pay-per-use hosted storage capacity. Another 43% said that they were interested but had no plans to implement cloud storage.
It's and interesting dichotomy. The storage pros aren't ready and have concerns about security, compliance and portability, but the vendors are all about the cloud.
There's too much invested in the cloud moniker to have it fall by the wayside in favor of some new flavor of the month, but the vendors may have to drag users into the cloud in the coming years, especially when it comes to entrusting their critical data to a hosted service. Regardless, having a cloud credential or two on the resume can't hurt.
For news and feature articles on cloud storage, visit InfoStor's cloud storage Topic Center.
This week, the University of California, Irvine Extension announced a new eight-week online course titled "Cloud Computing," beginning Monday, April 12. According to the school, "the course was created to arm participants with an advanced level of knowledge and hands-on experience in understanding, designing and implementing a cloud-based software system."
Specifically, the course will outline current industry techniques and practices, future challenges and survey applications deployed by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The aim is to arm students with "an understanding of cloud computing models, techniques and architectures, and its application by providers in delivering common business functions such as data storage, computing resources and messaging online."
UC Irvine is not alone. There are a wealth of cloud computing resources and courses cropping up on the Web. UC Berkeley has the cloud on its radar and IT education companies like Stratos Learning and Plularsight also offer cloud-related courses. Not to mention the storage industry's efforts including the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA) Cloud Storage Initiative.
It's no surprise that cloud technologies are finding their way into the realm of higher learning, but is the cloud phenomenon a result of industry hype or end user interest when it comes to cloud storage?
Editor-in-Chief Dave Simpson highlighted some interesting research from Forrester that points to the former. In his recent piece, "Survey: Users not very interested in cloud storage," Dave cites a Forrester survey that shows about 43% of the respondents said that they were categorically "not interested" in adopting pay-per-use hosted storage capacity. Another 43% said that they were interested but had no plans to implement cloud storage.
It's and interesting dichotomy. The storage pros aren't ready and have concerns about security, compliance and portability, but the vendors are all about the cloud.
There's too much invested in the cloud moniker to have it fall by the wayside in favor of some new flavor of the month, but the vendors may have to drag users into the cloud in the coming years, especially when it comes to entrusting their critical data to a hosted service. Regardless, having a cloud credential or two on the resume can't hurt.
For news and feature articles on cloud storage, visit InfoStor's cloud storage Topic Center.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Unified fabrics: 10GbE iSCSI vs. FCoE
January 29, 2010 -- The consensus is that 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) will be the basis for unified fabrics/converged networks, but which storage protocol will become the de facto standard for SAN/LAN convergence?
In a recent study "Benefits Of SAN/LAN Convergence," conducted by Forrester Research and commissioned by Dell, 10GbE iSCSI ranks highest among users as the protocol of choice for unified fabrics.
Forrester conducted an online survey with 213 storage professionals in the US, UK, China, and the Netherlands, and 10 in-depth interviews of the same audience. The results show that more than double the respondents selected 10GbE iSCSI (56%) versus the next closest choice, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) (27%).
The study also revealed that 66% of respondents overall said that they are very interested or moderately interested in the concept of unified fabric or SAN/LAN convergence.
The reason for the iSCSI interest is mostly due to the adoption of server virtualization technology. Forrester claims that iSCSI is growing as protocol of choice for virtual server deployments. In a Forrester Research survey from January 2009, Fibre Channel led strongly in protocol selection for virtual server connection. This time around, Fibre Channel still leads the way, but iSCSI is closer behind.
According to Forrester, the data points to strong interest in unified fabrics, as well as interest in iSCSI in 10GbE format as a viable alternative to Fibre Channel storage.
Travis Vigil, a senior manager with Dell responsible for the company's line of EqualLogic iSCSI SAN products, says iSCSI was one of the few segments of the storage market to experience year-over-year growth of approximately 25%.
"The economic situation was an accelerator for iSCSI growth as customers looked to eliminate cost and complexity from their environments. The other contributing factor to the growth of iSCSI is server virtualization as we've seen more and more customers choose iSCSI as their fabric of choice," he says. "First time server virtualization customers find iSCSI to be a cost-effective technology."
Vigil also says iSCSI 10GbE will only make iSCSI better as Ethernet becomes the basis for unified network fabrics. "Fibre Channel over Ethernet is still developing, but iSCSI is here and now. Ten Gigabit Ethernet is only going to make iSCSI better," he says.
For users with legacy Fibre Channel gear, FCoE leads the way as the Ethernet choice. If they move to an Ethernet SAN, 44% chose FCoE, but 30% chose iSCSI, at a close second, and 26% chose NFS, in third.
The shift to unified fabrics is definitely underway, but it will be interesting to see how iSCSI fares as FCoE products become fully baked.
In a recent study "Benefits Of SAN/LAN Convergence," conducted by Forrester Research and commissioned by Dell, 10GbE iSCSI ranks highest among users as the protocol of choice for unified fabrics.
Forrester conducted an online survey with 213 storage professionals in the US, UK, China, and the Netherlands, and 10 in-depth interviews of the same audience. The results show that more than double the respondents selected 10GbE iSCSI (56%) versus the next closest choice, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) (27%).
The study also revealed that 66% of respondents overall said that they are very interested or moderately interested in the concept of unified fabric or SAN/LAN convergence.
The reason for the iSCSI interest is mostly due to the adoption of server virtualization technology. Forrester claims that iSCSI is growing as protocol of choice for virtual server deployments. In a Forrester Research survey from January 2009, Fibre Channel led strongly in protocol selection for virtual server connection. This time around, Fibre Channel still leads the way, but iSCSI is closer behind.
According to Forrester, the data points to strong interest in unified fabrics, as well as interest in iSCSI in 10GbE format as a viable alternative to Fibre Channel storage.
Travis Vigil, a senior manager with Dell responsible for the company's line of EqualLogic iSCSI SAN products, says iSCSI was one of the few segments of the storage market to experience year-over-year growth of approximately 25%.
"The economic situation was an accelerator for iSCSI growth as customers looked to eliminate cost and complexity from their environments. The other contributing factor to the growth of iSCSI is server virtualization as we've seen more and more customers choose iSCSI as their fabric of choice," he says. "First time server virtualization customers find iSCSI to be a cost-effective technology."
Vigil also says iSCSI 10GbE will only make iSCSI better as Ethernet becomes the basis for unified network fabrics. "Fibre Channel over Ethernet is still developing, but iSCSI is here and now. Ten Gigabit Ethernet is only going to make iSCSI better," he says.
For users with legacy Fibre Channel gear, FCoE leads the way as the Ethernet choice. If they move to an Ethernet SAN, 44% chose FCoE, but 30% chose iSCSI, at a close second, and 26% chose NFS, in third.
The shift to unified fabrics is definitely underway, but it will be interesting to see how iSCSI fares as FCoE products become fully baked.
Friday, January 22, 2010
IBM, FujiFilm demo 35TB tape cartridge
January 22, 2010 -- As the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Program announces licensing details for the next generation of 3TB LTO 5 tapes, IBM and FujiFilm are unveiling new technology that makes it possible to hold up to 35TB of uncompressed data on a single tape cartridge.
The world record breakthrough was made possible by an improvement in the precision of controlling the position of the read-write heads, according to IBM. The pinpoint control yields better than a 25-fold increase in the number of tracks that can be squeezed onto the half-inch-wide tape.
The scientists have also developed new detection methods to increase the accuracy of reading the tiny magnetic bits, an advance that increases the linear recording density by more than 50%.
The tape also uses a new, low-friction read-write head developed by IBM Research.
IBM claims the demonstration (view the IBM Research video) was performed at product-level tape speeds (2 meters per second) and achieved error rates that are correctable using standard error-correction techniques to meet IBM's performance specification for its LTO Generation 4 products.
Tape still has the advantage over hard disk drives (HDDs) when it comes to cost. IBM claims today's tape systems cost one-fifth to one-tenth the price of disk-based storage systems, not to mention the power savings associated with magnetic storage.
The concept of storing that much data on a single tape may stave off the "tape is dead" argument for another decade – at least that what IBM is hoping.
The world record breakthrough was made possible by an improvement in the precision of controlling the position of the read-write heads, according to IBM. The pinpoint control yields better than a 25-fold increase in the number of tracks that can be squeezed onto the half-inch-wide tape.
The scientists have also developed new detection methods to increase the accuracy of reading the tiny magnetic bits, an advance that increases the linear recording density by more than 50%.
The tape also uses a new, low-friction read-write head developed by IBM Research.
IBM claims the demonstration (view the IBM Research video) was performed at product-level tape speeds (2 meters per second) and achieved error rates that are correctable using standard error-correction techniques to meet IBM's performance specification for its LTO Generation 4 products.
Tape still has the advantage over hard disk drives (HDDs) when it comes to cost. IBM claims today's tape systems cost one-fifth to one-tenth the price of disk-based storage systems, not to mention the power savings associated with magnetic storage.
The concept of storing that much data on a single tape may stave off the "tape is dead" argument for another decade – at least that what IBM is hoping.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Survey: DR plans slipping through the cracks
January 13, 2010 -- I happened to be on the phone with Symantec last week to discuss the results of their annual State of the Data Center Study when an earthquake shook California. In my mind, the event reiterated the need for frequent testing of disaster recovery (DR) plans. That's why I was surprised to learn that a growing number of users are letting DR plans go untouched for long periods of time.
Once the quake subsided, Matthew Lodge, a senior director with Symantec's information management group, told me that DR plans are vulnerable and have become a victim of a decrease in funding.
According to the Symantec 2010 State of the Data Center Study, which is based on surveys of 1,780 data center managers in 26 countries in November 2009, there is room for improvement in disaster recovery.
One-third of those surveyed said their DR plans are undocumented or need work and important IT components, such as cloud computing, remote office and virtual servers are often not included in the DR plan. To make matters worse, almost 33% of enterprises haven't re-evaluated their disaster recovery plan in the last 12 months.
"One of the hardest hit areas of the data center in terms of funding is disaster recovery," said Lodge. "A lot of companies haven't refreshed or reevaluated their DR plan in quite some time."
It seems IT staffers are focusing their efforts elsewhere. The survey revealed the top concerns in the data to be increased complexity and too many applications.
One-third of all enterprises say staff productivity is hampered by too many applications. Adding to the complexity is the continued increase in data causing 71% of organizations to consider data reduction technologies such as deduplication, according to Symantec.
Most enterprises have 10 or more data center initiatives rated as somewhat or absolutely important and 50% expect "significant" changes to their data centers in 2010.
Lodge said 50% of all enterprises say applications are growing somewhat/quickly and half are finding it difficult and costly to meet service level agreements (SLAs).
Mid-sized enterprise data centers are weathering the storm best. Lodge said mid-sized enterprises are more agile, show more activity, and predict major changes to the data center and new applications in 2010. Mid-sized enterprises also place a higher importance on staffing and training than their small or large enterprise counterparts.
Mid-sized enterprises are more aggressive and pioneering than either small or large enterprises. They are adopting new technology initiatives such as cloud computing, replication, and deduplication at 11-17 percent higher rates than small or large enterprises.
Not surprisingly, Symantec's answer to the aforementioned challenges is software. "Let the software help you out. Users need to look for more areas of integration and need to adopt an automated, policy-based approach to management rather than going for a raft of individual tools for the data center," Lodge said.
Some additional tidbits from the Symantec 2010 State of the Data Center Study:
Security, backup and recovery, and continuous data protection are the most important initiatives in 2010, ahead of virtualization.
Staffing and budgets remain tight with half of all enterprises reporting they are somewhat/extremely understaffed.
Virtual machine protection continues to be a focus for enterprises, with 82% of enterprises considering virtual-machine technologies in 2010
Check out the InfoStor disaster recovery page for the latest news and view on the state of DR.
Once the quake subsided, Matthew Lodge, a senior director with Symantec's information management group, told me that DR plans are vulnerable and have become a victim of a decrease in funding.
According to the Symantec 2010 State of the Data Center Study, which is based on surveys of 1,780 data center managers in 26 countries in November 2009, there is room for improvement in disaster recovery.
One-third of those surveyed said their DR plans are undocumented or need work and important IT components, such as cloud computing, remote office and virtual servers are often not included in the DR plan. To make matters worse, almost 33% of enterprises haven't re-evaluated their disaster recovery plan in the last 12 months.
"One of the hardest hit areas of the data center in terms of funding is disaster recovery," said Lodge. "A lot of companies haven't refreshed or reevaluated their DR plan in quite some time."
It seems IT staffers are focusing their efforts elsewhere. The survey revealed the top concerns in the data to be increased complexity and too many applications.
One-third of all enterprises say staff productivity is hampered by too many applications. Adding to the complexity is the continued increase in data causing 71% of organizations to consider data reduction technologies such as deduplication, according to Symantec.
Most enterprises have 10 or more data center initiatives rated as somewhat or absolutely important and 50% expect "significant" changes to their data centers in 2010.
Lodge said 50% of all enterprises say applications are growing somewhat/quickly and half are finding it difficult and costly to meet service level agreements (SLAs).
Mid-sized enterprise data centers are weathering the storm best. Lodge said mid-sized enterprises are more agile, show more activity, and predict major changes to the data center and new applications in 2010. Mid-sized enterprises also place a higher importance on staffing and training than their small or large enterprise counterparts.
Mid-sized enterprises are more aggressive and pioneering than either small or large enterprises. They are adopting new technology initiatives such as cloud computing, replication, and deduplication at 11-17 percent higher rates than small or large enterprises.
Not surprisingly, Symantec's answer to the aforementioned challenges is software. "Let the software help you out. Users need to look for more areas of integration and need to adopt an automated, policy-based approach to management rather than going for a raft of individual tools for the data center," Lodge said.
Some additional tidbits from the Symantec 2010 State of the Data Center Study:
Security, backup and recovery, and continuous data protection are the most important initiatives in 2010, ahead of virtualization.
Staffing and budgets remain tight with half of all enterprises reporting they are somewhat/extremely understaffed.
Virtual machine protection continues to be a focus for enterprises, with 82% of enterprises considering virtual-machine technologies in 2010
Check out the InfoStor disaster recovery page for the latest news and view on the state of DR.
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