The Storage Quandary
The Internet and email have introduced new ways of communicating with customers and growing business but they have also contributed to the amount of data that businesses today need to store. This data is growing exponentially, and busy IT teams already have their hands full maintaining and configuring systems so whilst storing and keeping track of all the data is a concern, it often gets pushed to the bottom of the list because teams lack the time or in-house skills to deal with it properly. This perpetuates an escalating investment in storage management and device purchases.
Businesses are consequently caught in a simple but challenging equation: as the amount of data they need to store for both legal and regulatory reasons continues to skyrocket out of control, so too does the investment they need to make in storage products. While it may, at surface level, seem perfectly reasonable to purchase additional storage as the need arises, the reality is that a range of different pressures, bad habits and industry practices have forced businesses into storage purchasing practices that are less than optimal. However, before businesses can start to examine how they can improve the total cost of ownership of their storage purchases, it is important to first examine what the most common errors are.
Firstly, it has become common practice to purchase more storage capacity than is actually needed, which at first glance seems a sensible option given how rapidly the amount of data most business have that needs to be stored is growing. However, purchasing in this way means that the majority of businesses often have extra capacity that is not being used but which they have paid for. Another problem is that storage is typically sold in very large increments, and having to purchase such large volumes of storage also means that the IT team cannot use their budget as effectively as they would like. For example, if an important project was to come up later in the year, which requires IT support, business agility can actually be reduced because funds have been absorbed by purchasing the excess storage.
As a result of these problems and despite spending a great deal of money on their storage arrangements, companies still have to compromise because it is difficult to purchase storage hardware that performs at the desired level, in the right increments for the right price. When IT managers are forced to use up their budgets buying large blocks of storage, it often means that they end up buying medium performance storage when they really need high performance storage because of today’s restrictive storage pricing structures.
With so many different factors affecting and hindering storage purchasing, it is not surprising that storage management can seem complex and difficult. Many have found that their storage environments are in such chaos because of the way they have had to purchase their storage that they are now desperately looking for a way to simplify their infrastructure, reduce costs and get the most return from the storage that they buy. While a storage area network (SAN) offers the benefits of centralised management, flexibility and scalability, the cost required to buy the hardware and software needed to create this network, not to mention the cost and skills required to manage it, often places it out of reach of all but the largest companies with the biggest budgets.
Another cost that is sometimes forgotten is the cost of actually managing the storage environment. While purchasing storage is a one off cost, management is an expensive and ongoing cost, especially considering that the organisation will most likely will not have someone in-house with the specialised management skills that will be needed to manage the new environment. A managed storage environment is certainly worth considering. Not only will it allow the business to reap the benefits of a SAN without having to invest heavily in a whole new environment upfront, but they don’t need to have the skills in-house to manage the SAN as the managed storage service provider will take care of the day to day management of the environment.
Also, while the majority of small and medium sized businesses will have a dedicated network administrator who is more than capable of managing a few terabytes of storage, the issue becomes more complicated if the amount of data needing to be stored grows significantly as it will take up much more of the person’s time. Many businesses which are experiencing rapid data growth are forced into employing more people to manage their storage because they can no longer rely on the skills of just one network administrator. This problem is compounded if the person only has limited time to spend on other more valuable tasks and could even place the company at risk if the single network administrator decides to go on holiday. In addition, the more different devices from multiple vendors running a myriad of applications the company has, the more resources will be required to manage the environment.
For most businesses, it would be worth investigating outsourcing their storage to a managed storage service provider. The outsourced storage model has many benefits for businesses of all sizes and can significantly help organisations to reduce their storage costs. For example, businesses that have their storage in-house and have problems with storage devices are often told to send back the malfunctioning device which means the business has to cope without the device while it is being fixed. If instead the storage was outsourced, if a problem was to occur, the business would know that the provider would analyse the problem in its entirety and take responsibility for fixing it quickly. In addition, businesses using a managed storage service provider no longer need to worry about purchasing new storage hardware, nor maintaining and updating it.
This particularly suits businesses such as online retailers who have seasonal peaks and troughs to their storage needs and need a way to quickly and easily scale their storage needs up and down according to their business requirements. If they tried to do this with in-house storage they would be faced with purchasing large amounts of storage to cope with the busy periods, which would then sit unutilised during quiet times. Instead, by outsourcing their storage businesses can simplify, delay, or eliminate complex in-house SAN infrastructures, purchase less capacity overall and potentially lower operating expenses by conserving electricity and floor space, no to mention expenses covering powering, cooling, and housing unnecessary disk drives. Outsourcing this functionality means that IT staff are freed up to concentrate on strategic IT tasks aimed at helping the business grow and develop, rather than administrative tasks like provisioning and maintaining storage.
Another driver prompting businesses to investigate the possibilities of managed storage services are laws and regulations like Sarbanes Oxley which are forcing companies to store large amounts of data for long periods of time. While it is certainly possible to meet the requirements of these regulations with careful storage management in-house, not only does this require several IT staff to manage the data and ensure compliance but if the company is audited, it can quickly become a nightmare. Auditors investigating whether in-house storage complies will request to not only see the physical storage devices themselves to confirm they are stored securely but will want detailed explanations of the ‘logical’ or technological security used as well to ensure that the data has not been modified or altered while it was stored. They will also require specific information about how the data is maintained and managed to preserve its integrity. Businesses using a managed storage service, on the other hand, will be able to satisfy auditors with a written guarantee from their provider that the data is being stored in a compliant fashion, making compliance more of a tick-box exercise than a nightmare.
Furthermore, using a managed storage service allows businesses to purchase just the amount of storage that they need. The provider can also give an analysis of how frequently the data is accessed compared to whether it is stored on high, medium or lower performance storage devices. This assessment allows businesses to save money by moving data that is not actually being accessed frequently from high performance storage to medium or even much cheaper archival storage, thus helping to raise the TCO of the storage environment.
One common myth that businesses mention when looking at managed storage is whether performance will be affected by sharing capacity. To avoid problems, businesses should ensure that their provider offers a quality of service guarantee in their contract. This will be measured in nano-seconds so businesses should look for the lowest possible number to ensure that they won’t be coming second to other customers.
There is an opportunity for businesses to change the way they purchase storage to address these issues. Using a managed storage service provider can provide the best of both worlds. It allows IT managers to keep control of how much storage is consumed and how it is used but offload the day to day management, while businesses can reap the rewards of more efficient storage and better performing applications without a negative impact on their bottom line.