Storage best practices for enterprises

BANGALORE, INDIA: Initiating a new project, or buying and then deploying a new storage/server platform, or experimenting on a new network, or backing up storage are some mandatory processes for any growing business.

However, a CIO walks with much trepidation because any new project or platform or network come at additional cost. More than the cost of the new platform or network, it is the additional investment in managing/backing-up/storing additional data that they are worried about.

Today, especially when the 'do more with less' strategy hovers constantly over their heads, CIOs have to go through many levels of decision making before arriving at the final strategy to carry out these processes.

So, what is it that it will make these processes easy for a CIO? Here we are trying to look at a few best practices that CIOs can make note of, to make their job easy.

Access and assess data growth

One of the top concerns is how to assess, as well access a company's storage environment and its growth.

Ericsson India CIO Tamal Chakravorty is of the opinion that storage should be the last thing an IT manager should worry about, nor should any discussion ever happen between a vendor and IT manager on how data growth can be tracked, or capacity planned.

"There should be tools like 'instaccess' which can tell an user how much is being consumed and how to use it properly. There should be tools that tell an user, constantly and dynamically, how much is being spent on storage consumption, based on a tariff rate. Storage should be elastic and available somewhere. It can be accessed from our data centre or a hosted data centre. However, access speed should be benchmarked and then a decision should be taken on how to access storage environment."

"One can assess storage environment based on current data volume, expected business/data growth, type/nature of software applications being used, current network access framework (like LAN/Intranet/External access thro’ Internet) etc," notes sr. general manager - Enterprise wide Solutions, Sakthi Finance Ltd./ABT Industries Ltd.

On the other hand, Pertisth Mankotiya, head, IT, Sheela Foam (SleepWell), feels that for the kind of growth of data that we are seeing today, 'about 100 times more than what was in 2006',  it is not easy to access or assess data growth. So, what can be done is to use hardware that is expandable as well as flexible and also use technologies such as storage virtualization and unified storage to contain this growth.

Adding new technology into an existing one

Updating the existing storage environment is one of the daunting tasks for any CIO since that requires many factors to be taken into consideration, such as making the best out of the past investment, see to it that you do not suffer just because the new product does not align with the existing environment and foremost, how to decide which is the best technology for you.

Raveendran says: "If both the legacy and new technology are from the same vendor, then some methods can be worked out to leverage the existing product. Otherwise, it is wise to replace the existing one with the proposed device.

However, Pertisth likes to differ a bit. He says: "Storage is not something that you can buy daily. So we have to see to it that the existing is utilized."

So, before buying a new storage technology companies need to evaluate the features and scalability of the new technology (SAN/NAS etc.) against their envisaged storage environment and data growth before buying it, notes Raveendran.

Pertisth suggests three steps to consider before making a purchase decision, which are:

1. Can the new product support data growth that of five to six times? It is not necessary that you have to make all the investment today, it can be made partially.

2. It should be simple to use and not very complex.

3. It should support all platforms, should be flexible, and have expandable storage and performance.

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Tamal too feels the same about the elasticity of the new technology.

“It should be upgradeable for the next “n” years, be able to connect to any box (old age to new age boxes), should be available within own premises to external premises and still be intelligent to understand, and give the same feel to user,” Tamal adds.

When it comes to leveraging the existing storage products and solutions, he also adds that the old ones should be used for low cost data, such as pst files, old data un-used for last 180 days etc, powerpoint presentations, videos etc.

Data back-up woes

In order to address the back-up woes, a managed and comprehensive back-up environment with a separate back-up server, proven software and back-up device is a must. Disk based back-ups are gaining momentum than using the peripherals, such as LTO tapes, notes Raveendran.

Pertisth notes of instances where a back-up system fails to work, when required.

“We had changed our approach to back-up because of that. For example, we transferred report loading to our DR site, thus backing it up, thus addressing the load balancing requirement, as well for the reporting purpose. This has been done for data base only. This assures that the investment that I have made on the DR site for back-up is being utilised and that the load is also being balanced. For other kind of situation we go for cloud, for if you do not have tapes, then cloud is the answer.”

Whereas for Tamal, remote back-up solution with labeling option is the best way to approach this concern.

Which storage vendor to choose?

Coming to the problem of how to zero down on a company and its product, Raveendran says, “The company offering should be proven, cost effective, and efficient (in terms of access speed, scalability etc.) with competitive pricing and long-term warranty.

For Pretisht, the foremost thing is after sales support.

“People change vendors not due to the product but due to services support,” he notes.

Storage best practices

Here are a few best practices that the CIOs need to share:

Pro-active planning of storage space.

Establish virtual server environments.

Ensure compatibility between storage and server environments..

Do not neglect/compromise on the connecting devices such as SAN switch.

It is you and not the vendor who has to decide, internally, what to buy after assessing the possible data growth.

Define your objective for the next three years in terms of data growth. The new technology should support both data and performance growth and should be manageable by internal IT team.

After sales support service from vendor.

“Technology has a life like a banana. You do not think that you are buying a storage and run it for six years. Start with an intention that you will run it for a maximum of three years. It is after all going to change after that, and so is always better to change it then,” Pertisth signs off.