Top 10 issues overloading IT managers

2. Storage
Iain Thomson: As companies and individuals we are now generating more content than at any point in human history. We're also having to store it for compliance purposes and this presents the IT manager with something of a problem.

It's an understandable human need to store everything that's done online. However, simply storing the data isn't the only problem. It's when someone wants to access it that the real fun kicks in. A good storage strategy needs to address both concerns.

Storage is essential, particularly off-site storage. If the company takes a physical hit you need off-site backup to be safe. In my first journalism job we had a break in and lost all our hardware, along with two issues of the magazine, and no backups. It took three weeks of hard labour to pull us back from financial ruin.

So an IT manager needs to be a master of the craft. Simply copying everything on the hard drives takes a huge amount of space and is rather wasteful. After all, if someone has sent a large PowerPoint presentation to 50 staff there's no point in saving it 49 times when once will do. This explains why the bidding for Data Domain was so fierce.

Storage also remains a security problem. It's scary how often companies create storage systems that don't involve encryption. Miss this and the company faces a loss of data and a lawsuit.

Shaun Nichols: This is, of course, the heart of information overload. We are creating more content than ever, through more channels than ever, with more tools than ever and it all has to go somewhere.

No matter how many analysts, hardware vendors or service providers we talk to, the warning is always the same: don't just throw more hard drives at the problem. Archives have become so large and so complex that it's not sufficient to simply increase the storage volume any more. Indeed, with budgets shrinking it isn't even possible for many companies.

Instead, the constant theme seems to be make better use of the storage you have. Iain mentioned de-duplication, erasing multiple copies of a file you only need to back up once. Other suggested fixes include tiering data, moving to online backup systems and using snapshots rather than full system backups.

Whatever the remedy, it's clear that simply expanding storage isn't enough any more. Companies have to take a new look at how they manage their data and approach storage.

1. Budget constraints
Shaun Nichols: There's never a good time for a recession, but from a technological standpoint, this latest one could not have hit at a worse time.

Advances in hardware, software and network technology have given birth to entirely new fields of the industry, and just as many companies were looking to see the fruits of those new technologies, the economy took a dive and IT budgets everywhere took a major hit.

When you get down to it, the top two items on the list are pretty much interchangeable. The amount of data keeps growing and the budget for managing it keeps shrinking. From these two issues the entire problem of information overload really springs.

The crisis may, however, have a silver lining. Just as the Great Depression brought about economic and social reforms that improved the quality of life in later decades, this latest recession could necessitate advances in the approach to IT management and the business culture that will help speed up the recovery.

Having learned how to do more with less, IT departments could emerge from the crisis better able to manage their systems and with a greater understanding of how to squeeze the most out of the resources on hand.

Iain Thomson: Oh Shaun, you are a little ray of sunshine at times. I hope you're right about the recession being a good thing.

There is never enough money to do everything in IT. The only people with unlimited budgets are government security systems and even they must bow to the accountants at times. I suspect in 100 years from now IT managers will still be complaining about having to do too much with too little funding, unless we've reached the Singularity by then and are no longer running the show (and I for one welcome our new overlords).

But you may have hit the nail on the head with your broader point. We have to learn to do more with less, and if the recession helps it's certainly a silver lining in a very dark cloud.