Avoiding the San traps

Network managers have ceased to find storage boring. Why? Simply because ebusiness has fuelled an exponential growth of storage, demanding an increasing cut from the IT budget. So network managers are forming communities to find their way through the promises made by anxious suppliers.

Four out of five companies still have server-attached storage, but are looking to expand away from it. Their options are easy 'plug-in' network attached storage that uses the local area network (Lan). Or a storage area network (San) that is harder to install but leaves the Lan free for operational traffic.

San architecture is evolving rapidly, and standards are emerging to simplify design and to bring it within reach of network managers.

However, the San architecture that is currently available will need to be improved before it can handle the next wave of storage needs. This is because the advantage of disk space and fast fibre optics is outweighed by the difficulties of management and content sharing.

Specialist technology
To deal with these difficulties, two trends have now emerged among industry players. One group believes that the San's basic structure should be equipped with management tools and sharing interfaces. The other argues that San is a specialist technology and should be outsourced to a storage service provider (SSP).

Tivoli belongs to the first of these groups. It has launched Sanergy, which enables San users to share access across platforms. And its storage network manager simplifies the management of information across the multiple operating environments which are typical of a San.

Robin Pilcher, Tivoli's marketing manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said: "Storage management should create an 'any-to-any' environment to open systems and set up policies on how to use available space in the most clever way over the entire lifecycle."

Randy Kernf, a partner at storage consultants Evaluator Group, believes that vendors are eager to provide products that can ease the pain of managing Sans because there is a lot of money to be earned from it.

Another reason for their eagerness is that suppliers know that once network managers have invested in a fibre optic channel, they are unlikely to change it for at least five years. So, if a supplier has provided the management tool that can work with their San, the customer will be loyal for a long time.

"Storage management is different from Lan management," said Kernf. "There are not enough skilled people around to administer the growing storage market, and the cost is out of sight."

He added that most companies are now forming separate groups to handle Sans and are looking at various storage management products to see which is best for them. He believes that it is vital to get independent information to navigate the maze of marketing.

"There is a small community of storage users that works through word of mouth," explained Kernf. "A way to join up to these communities is to go to a seminar and talk to fellow delegates."

Service level agreements
Another storage trend is to outsource to a vendor, based on a price per Kb of disk space. The service level agreement will define such issues as how and when storage will be available, whether it will archive rich content, and how often it will be backed up.

The outsourcing alternative could make it easier for companies to move to Sans, as the expertise needed and complexity of the system would then be the service provider's problem.

These suppliers are fairly similar to data warehousing vendors, with the difference that they specifically target ecommerce companies.

ManageStorage is one such supplier. Its view on storage development is that its new model is virtual instead of actual and leased instead of bought. It provides a broad range of scaleable managed storage services and service offerings in complex content such as video and imaging.

Daniel Coetsier, president of ManageStorage, said: "We have the expertise to deploy the best architecture. Our customers don't have the resources or the skills to set up their own San."

Like most SSPs, ManageStorage offers both a private service that gives access to a private San, and a public service that gives access to a shared San. This provides a high-end infrastructure at a lower price.

However, Josh Krischer, research director at Gartner, said that SSPs are not suitable for every company.

"The cost of storage management can be up to seven times the cost of its hardware," he said. "These costs affect the price of SSPs so much that they are only justifiable for dotcom companies who lack infrastructure skills and would rent rather than buy."