Storage Management: Requires a mindset change

Demand for storage capacity and information management are growing exponentially because of e-business and other data-intensive applications. Large online databases are required for corporate customer management and a host of other critical business functions. As networks and e-business applications become the mainstay of most corporations' information technology infrastructure, data storage has also become a critical issue in network design.

Exponential growth in the amount of information and the user's desire to store is forcing corporate information technology and communication managers to focus on the importance of network storage. Adding corporate back-end storage management needs with network storage needs, the need for a comprehensive storage management solution for corporations becomes critical. The quantity of data being generated by businesses today is growing at incredible rates. This increase is placing significant pressure and constraints on corporate information technology organizations. Faced with these pressures, businesses are looking increasingly to enterprise storage management solutions to meet explosive data expansion and just as importantly, to protect critical business data.

Frost&Sullivan estimates that 50% of overall IT expenditure will be directed towards storage management solutions and associated labor and material costs by 2004. A key challenge that organizations face in storage management is inadequate knowledge of their storage infrastructure. In many instances, it has been observed that organizations in India often add storage resources in a haphazard manner. They are often unaware of aspects such as the total number of storage devices that have been used in the organization, their location, and proper usage.

Frost&Sullivan further believes that organizations can overcome these challenges by diligently preparing a roadmap as to how their storage management requirements are likely to evolve during the course of next three-to-four years. They need to understand the contours and costs of their current information infrastructure and at the same time ensure that they have qualified and experienced professionals so that they can reach their infrastructure goals without any bottlenecks.

A majority of enterprises have not put in place a proper storage management policy primarily because this is often regarded as a sensitive issue because in a way by implementing such a policy the organization is putting a restriction on the amount of storage one person or group can use and also limiting the types of files that users can store on the storage service. In simple words, you are asking the users to place limits on something they currently perceive as infinite or free. Before implementing such a policy the users need to be educated about the rationale behind putting in place such a policy and also communicating to them how each individual user is likely to benefit from such an initiative.

Organizations need to realize that storage management policy has little to do with the technology and has more to do with changing the mindset of the actual users. People need to be clear why the company is implementing storage management. They need to know what their role in the process will be.

The writing is on the wall-there's bound to be resistance by the users when such a policy is brought into place in the organization and not everyone is going to be happy with limits on how much and what they can store. The onus would lie on the senior management to communicate the value proposition to the end users so that the transition is smooth.

The author,Biswarup Banerjee works with Frost & Sullivan.