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Follow UsThe overall external storage market grew by 18% during FY 2004-05
to reach Rs 565 crore from the FY 2003-04 revenues of Rs 479 crore. What was of
more significance was the gradual shift from DAS towards a network storage architecture,
particularly storage area networks (SANs) or even network area storage (NAS).
The network storage market, both SAN and NAS combined, grew by 39% to reach Rs
311 crore, up from Rs 225 crore a year earlier. At the same time the DAS
market, a long time favorite of Indian enterprises, dwindled by 7% to be pegged
at Rs 254 crore. All leading vendors like EMC, HP, NetApp, Sun, IBM and HDS
recorded higher growth figures for their SAN and NAS offerings. However,
overall, it was the year for EMC as it pipped HP to the post finishing at #1,
while NetApp too climbed the ranks to finish third in the overall pecking
order.
IP SAN's Impactful Debut
Within network storage, SAN garnered a lion's share of the
overall pie-at Rs 236 crore it accounted for 76% of the overall sales, up from
70% in FY 2003-04.While traditional fiber channel SANs still ruled the roost,
the emergence of IP SANs really tilted the scales. A spate of IP SAN deployments
across enterprises including even SMBs, accelerated the move away from DAS.
Organizations who were hesitant to go for fiber channel SANs earlier, perceived
as expensive, made the move towards IP SANs during the year. These IP SANs
promised the same level of performance as fiber channels, albeit with a slimmer
price tag and a simpler network topology.
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Pureplay storage vendors like EMC, NetApp or Hitachi |
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In the secondary storage tape backup market, India |
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SMBs went on a storage overdrive spending Rs 116 crore |
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Network storage market grew by 39% and for the first |
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E-mail archival gained prominence, driven by regulatory |
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Telecom, insurance, government institutes and banks |
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Source: DQ Top 20, 2005 |
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Since IP SANs used the iSCSI protocol, they offered SAN-like
functionality over industry-standard TCP/IP and Ethernet. IP, in turn, offered
cost benefits, as Ethernet was significantly less expensive than its fiber
channel equivalent. It also addressed inter-operability and network management
issues, both crucial for all enterprises. In addition, unlike IP, fiber channel
cannot be easily transported over a WAN. No wonder, therefore, that even other
than SMBs, many larger organizations too went for IP SAN in FY 2004-05.
Particularly, since it facilitated both storage consolidation as well as
provisioning.
Since IP SAN finally succeeded during the year in marrying off SAN
to TCP/IP, iSCSI also became the de facto industry standard. By carrying SCSI
commands over IP networks, iSCSI facilitated data transfer over an intranet and
helped IT teams remote manage storage from afar. The iSCSI protocol was,
therefore, among the key technologies that helped SAN deployment filter down to
small and medium organizations. Amongst SMBs, it was typically the technology,
media and healthcare companies that witnessed a larger deployment of IP SANs.
However, all this brouhaha over IP SAN should not imply that there
were no takers for traditional fiber channel SANs. All the large telecom
service providers went for multiple SANs-as their customer acquisition spree
continued unabated, it generated voluminous data that required meticulous
management. It also meant correct generation of a large number of bills, as
otherwise the very viability of the businesses for telcos would have been lost.
The experience of telcos indicated that though IP SANs gained ground, fiber
channel SANs were still preferred by larger enterprises for their
mission-critical applications. The perception remained amongst large
enterprises that IP SAN was neither as robust nor as secure as fiber channel.
One interesting strategy followed by some vendors was to push IP
SANs as a complementary technology to fiber channels. IP SANs were used to
consolidate existing SANs at the high end, but fiber channel was preferred for
the high—end applications. Banks were the early adopters of this strategy-many
of them still had fiber channels for their core applications, but went for IP
SANs as their nearline storage. This was killing two birds with one stone-IP
SANs cost nearly the same as tape libraries so the shift to random access for
archived data was done at no extra cost; besides, it enabled them to reduce
content on online fiber channel. ICICI Bank was a typical example-while it had
only islands of fiber channel, for consolidation purposes it moved from DAS to
IP-SANs in many cases.
ICICI's case indicates the other trend responsible for the
shrinking DAS market. Other than the price factor, many organizations could not
grapple with the complexities of fiber channel and were, therefore, still
remaining with DAS. However, with growing data and the need for a centralized
data management system it was only in FY 2004-05 that they discovered a new
manna in IP SAN with simple management from a GUI screen. As a result, 65% of
the IP SAN deployments recorded in the country were directly from
DAS-typically, organizations which followed the DAS to NAS route still went for
fiber channel when they migrated to SAN.
SAN's Virtualization Catalyst
The maturity of storage virtualization as a technology was
another factor that helped in the growth of SAN, particularly the traditional
fiber channel variety, during the year. While SANs promise superior performance
and flexibility, their benefits were outweighed by their complexity. Many
Indian enterprises, nearly 60-70% of the ones on SAN, adopted the concept of
storage virtualization to take full advantage of the SAN technology. Through
storage virtualization, storage devices from several vendors were consolidated
into a virtual storage device.
Not only the consolidation of resources, it also allowed
policy-based automation as well as automated backups. Virtualized storage was
not restricted by the capacity, speed or reliability limitations of physical
devices making up the virtual storage pool. This gave customers the ability to
choose storage hardware independent of the functionality that they needed from
it, and to change it and upgrade hardware without disrupting existing data.
Deployments of storage virtualization during FY 2004-05 took place in the BFSI,
telecom, and oil and gas verticals. This was logical considering that these
sectors were early SAN adopters and, therefore, also the first to realize the
advantages of storage virtualization. Their cost savings were significant, and
solutions were consistent across platforms.
On the vendor front, SAN was extremely lucrative for all the
leading players. Particularly since everyone pushed down SAN prices to
accommodate the pockets of Indian customers. An entry-level SAN box in FY
2004-05 cost as little as Rs 2.2 lakh as compared to Rs 7 lakh in FY 2003-04.
One important factor behind EMC's dramatic rise in the overall storage
sweepstakes was its super success in bringing SAN prices down to make it affordable
for the SMBs. The shift from the high end to accommodate customers in the
mid-size segment was seen from the fact that EMC's cheapest solution used to be
priced at around Rs 25 lakh, whereas in FY 2004-05 the company's entry-level
box AX100 CLARiiON went for Rs 2.8 lakh. On the IP-SAN front, a new entrant,
Intransa, tasted immediate success by closing more than 15 accounts across
verticals in less than one year.
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Enter ILM |
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ILM as a strategy was a buzzword |
NAS Losing Ground?
SAN might have grown by 49% during FY 2004-05, but NAS
failed to match this scorching pace, growing at only 12% to reach Rs 75 crore,
thereby constituting just 24% of the overall network storage pie. NetApp, HP
and IBM were the top three players in the Indian NAS segment. India proved to
be a particularly happy hunting ground for NetApp, contributing roughly 15% of
its Asia Pacific NAS revenues in FY 2004-05. Again, it was the question of NAS
becoming affordable for the SMBs-NetApp's Fabric Attached Storage (FAS) FAS900
Series and FAS200 Series have contributed significantly to its Indian sales.
SAN majors such as HP tried to catch up with NetApp in the NAS
sub-segment using their SAN strengths. For instance, HP tried to use the
installed base of its SAN deployments for selling its NAS products. It
recommended NAS boxes to its existing SAN customers for hosting non-critical
applications. The biggest growth areas for HP proved to be BPO, banking and
software development. It also saw growth from banks using NAS devices for
branch-level backups. EMC capitalized on its SAN strengths to sell the EMC
NetWin NAS Server (based on Windows Storage Server 2003). At Rs 2.92 lakh, the
NetWin 110 NAS was marketed as a cost-effective solution for organizations
looking to implement NAS for the first time.
Another development in the NAS space during FY 2004-05 was the
acceptance of Microsoft's Windows Storage Server (WSS). HP and EMC, among
others, released entry-level WSS-based NAS boxes during the year. For both
vendors, WSS gave them a quick way to release a fairly robust entry-level NAS
box at a competitive price point. In India, HP and Microsoft pitched
entry-level NAS boxes as a plug-and-play platform for dedicated file and print
services, disaster recovery or backup and for file server consolidation. SMBs
were looking for cost-effective options for storage and retrieval of e-mail
mailboxes. HP wanted to position its NAS boxes as a viable option for this
segment. The importance of the HP-Microsoft alliance can be seen from the fact
that it managed to target 5,000 Microsoft Exchange customers in India.
The FY 2004-05 also saw small players such as Tulsient coming out
with entry-level NAS boxes that cost less than $500 per box. These devices
started with a capacity of 360 GB and scaled up to 2.4 TB in the same
enclosure. Tulsient believed this approach suited SMBs to a tee, because this
flexibility allowed companies deploying NAS to have fixed configurations giving
rise to the phenomenon of forklift upgrades. NAS vendors also geared up to
address compliance issues. For example, NetApp's product, SnapLock backed up
new or changed files only once. This feature was designed for use for
organizations complying with regulations such as HIPAA, wherein medical records
are meant to be unchanged.
The convergence of SAN and NAS also accelerated during the year.
While primarily SAN vendors like Hitachi or EMC promoted NAS gateways, NAS
vendors like NetApp pushed iSCSI. For example, EMC's NetWin NAS server could
also be used to expand the capabilities of an existing SAN by enabling it to
perform NAS functions as well. This SAN-NAS consolidation definitely helped
enterprises reap better RoI.
Tapes Rejuvenated
According to a Purchasing Intentions Survey conducted by
TechTarget amongst more than 1000 CIOs globally, in 2004, 79% informed they
were likely to either increase, or at least maintain, their tape storage
spending in 2005: while 48% would maintain the status quo, 31% opted to spend
more on tapes and tape-related storage products. Nothing could have been a more
absolute rebuttal of the growing perception that tapes are on the verge of
extinction, gradually being replaced by disks as the most convenient form of
storage. The scene was no different in India, though owing to falling prices
the market could grow only by 14% to reach Rs 179 crore from Rs 157 crore in FY
2003-04.
Within tapes, India witnessed a preponderance of the low-end and
mid-range variety-at Rs 97 crore and Rs 69 crore, respectively they constituted
54% and 39% of the overall secondary storage market (mainly tapes) for FY
2004-05. While DDS/DAT mainly constituted the low-end of tapes, it was
primarily DLT/VS and some part of DDS/DAT that made up the mid-range variety.
The enterprise part was made up by LTO, another form of secondary storage based
on open standards developed by a consortium of HP, IBM and Quantum
(strengthened with the acquisition of Certance from Seagate). Tandberg also
joined this forum during the year as a full licensee. A large part of LTO also
incidentally came under the mid-range category.
In the overall Asia-Pacific secondary storage market, India ranked
second only behind Australia with 19% of the overall market share. However, it
was still primarily DDS/DAT and DLT/VS that ruled the roost, with LTO yet to
make deep inroads into the Indian market. There were even lesser takers for
proprietary technologies like Travan and AIT/VXA. It was primarily a
three-horse race between HP, IBM and Quantum-with HP at nearly 45% having the
lion's share followed by IBM and Quantum. Vendors like StorageTek and Exabyte,
however, managed to carve out their own niches. While new technologies emerged
on the scene, tape continued to be the preferred medium for long-term
archiving. India also continued to be a big market for these tape vendors.
That tapes continued to go strong could be seen from the spate of
product launches that happened during the year. The market leader HP launched
StorageWorks Ultrium 960 tape drives based on WORM (Write Once Read Many) technology
that could provide backup of up to 800 GB on a single cartridge. This was
subsequently followed by the launch of the SDLT 320 and the DLT VS 160. Quantum
also announced the launch of the SDLT 600 tape drives in India. These offered
double the capacity of the earlier version (SDLT 320) for a 20% hike in price.
All SDLT 600 tape drives included the built-in intelligence of DLTSage, a suite
of predictive diagnostic and management tools designed to ensure that data
backups are completed successfully and both drives and media can be properly
managed by IT administrators to prevent system outages. In November 2004,
Exabyte released Magnum 1X7 LTO Autoloader, an automated backup and restore
system followed by the Magnum Tape Drive (LTO-2), an external LTO-2 tape drive.
The next generation of LTO technology in the form of LTO3 made its
appearance in 2004. Players like HP, Quantum and Exabyte came out with LTO3
solutions during the year. LTO3 doubled the capacity to 400 GB uncompressed,
while the data transfer rate also doubled to 80 Mbps. This LTO tape enhancement
played into the ILM space because organizations could use tape for deep
archiving or backup, while optical jukeboxes helped with archiving and WORM
support. The improvements in the ILM product line focused on discovering and
classifying data in storage tiers and then moving that data into appropriate
storage-either disk, tape or optical storage-based on its importance, how
accessible it must be, frequency of use and relevancy.
Just as HP StorageWorks Ultrium 960 tape drives based on WORM were
launched, Quantum also enabled WORM into a disc drive with its M series range
of tape drives. The introduction of WORM tape provided an extra layer of
long-term protection, ensuring that data could last in an unalterable form for
years if not decades. WORM tape storage gained popularity during the year for
its ability to meet regulatory requirements such as HIPAA and the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
The FY 2004-05 saw Indian enterprises adopting disk-based backup.
Although tape continued to be a prime medium for long-term archiving, backups
were increasingly being taken onto disk due to the need for an ever-shrinking
backup window, as critical data applications could not be subject to downtime
for hours on end while a backup is written to tape. Disk-based backup became
particularly popular amongst SMBs and entertainment companies where rapid
retrieval and zero data loss are important.
It took two hours to back up 1TB of data onto a tape, whereas the
same amount of data could be backed up in less than 30 minutes using a
disk-to-disk backup. With technologies such as SATA (Serial Attached Technology
Attachment), disk drives therefore started giving tapes tough competition. SATA
drives were designed to offer higher data transfer rates, simpler RAID
integration and faster HDD installation as compared to parallel ATA
predecessors. Nearly 70% of installations in India were still on PATA (Parallel
Attached Advanced Technology Attachment) and their graduation to SATA drives
would still take some time.
Soaring Storage Software
The storage software market witnessed the highest growth of
25% amongst all three storage segments to reach Rs 110 crore, up from Rs 88
crore in FY 2003-04. Veritas led the pecking order followed by EMC (thanks to
its Legato, Vmware and Documentum acquisitions) while HP, IBM and CA made up
the top five. Backup and archival software still enjoyed a lion's share of the
Rs 59 crore that constituted 54% of the overall storage software market;
however, storage replication software witnessed the maximum growth of 86% to
reach Rs 26 crore in revenue. Storage software was incidentally one of the
strongest performers in the overall IT market as a result of increased interest
in data protection and tighter legislation around data storage
Continued customer spending on software for data protection,
storage resource management, and compliance helped to drive this positive
growth during FY 2004-05. Spending growth related to data protection, including
replication, backup, and archival software, was an indicator of customers'
continued concerns about application availability, data management, and
business continuity. This best exemplified the stupendous growth witnessed in
storage replication software during the year. This was a tool that created a
second copy of a back-up for disaster recovery. Incidentally, it was not only
the storage vendors-even enterprise application vendors like Oracle, Sybase and
Microsoft with their replication tools contributed towards this kitty.
The primary areas of concern during FY 2004-05 when determining
which technology to use in a storage infrastructure, were no longer just
capacity, performance, and price-the traditional axes of comparison. Instead,
effectively managing storage became a top priority, and it was this area in
which enterprises were willing to invest heavily. But the move to a focus on
storage management was only the first step in what promised to be a two-step
dance for storage administrators.
The next step was tying storage management with other
infrastructure-management applications such as data management, network
security, event automation and performance management, and platform
virtualization. In the overall run, the focus in storage shifted during the
year from the hardware infrastructure (eg servers, peripherals) to the software
infrastructure (eg a component of an overarching infrastructure management
layer). The shift in emphasis from storage hardware to storage software is
already well underway during the year. And this was reflected in the 25%
increase that also boosted the overall storage market growth.
Vendors who have traditionally specialized in the external storage
space earned higher margins from storage software largely on account of the
commoditization of external storage. Sector-wise BFSI, Telecom, ITeS,
manufacturing and government were among the biggest spenders on storage
infrastructure and solutions. Banks led the pack for the during FY
2004-05-there were five banks amongst the top ten IT spenders in India during
the year. As banks needed to follow RBI regulations such as the Basel II and
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, they had to ensure that data is stored properly for the
required timeframe. Veritas brought products to market for addressing the needs
of SMBs. Netbackup 5.0 Server helped organizations to replicate data
automatically to a safe site. It also launched the Backup Exec 10 suite in
January 2005 that claimed to help SMBs consolidate their data and centralize
their IT infrastructure.
Archiving E-Mails
E-mail archival gained prominence in 2004. For instance,
almost 80% of Internet usage went towards the use of e-mail services. According
to different regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, every
organization needed to archive its e-mail. As Indian organizations went global,
the need to comply with different regulations, and in turn, the need for e-mail
archiving was felt. E-mail, document management and instant message archiving
were mandatory for regulatory compliance, legal discovery and business continuity
practices. In India, the vendors were bullish about the emerging e-mail
archival market. EMC looked at e-mail archiving as the next logical step. Its
acquisition of Legato and Veritas, acquisition of KVS were done with the
rationale that backup ensures that data is protected and stored appropriately.
Archiving went a step further and simplified the process of managing and
finding data.
Vendors positioned e-mail archiving as an effective tool for
lowering the TCO of storage. Veritas pushed its solution as one that addressed
the availability and performance of MS Exchange by archiving e-mail that is
infrequently accessed. The archive could be kept on low-cost storage devices
driving down the total cost of the Exchange system. EMC also offered an upgrade
to its Legato EmailXtender archiving software that featured support for MS
Exchange 2003. Apart from the usual functions, the EmailXtender mapped all
e-mail against policies specified at the mail server, thereby freeing the mail
server for mission-critical applications. Similarly, NetApp's LockVault
identified data in spreadsheets, presentations or home-grown file formats that
might fall under the ambit of regulatory compliance. These solutions permitted
unstructured data backup by copying and storing only the unique blocks of data
that have been written since the most recent incremental backup.
Source: Dataquest