Ending Data Woes with Storage Resource Management

By Jodi Mardesich

Organizations continue to struggle with exploding data storage demands. Data storage also continues to be a big expense in most corporations. However, despite growing storage needs, few enterprises have purchased technology tools that allow them to monitor, review, or manage their storage environments.  Fortunately, software to streamline the task, dubbed storage resource management (SRM), is maturing.

A new crop of SRM tools can help organizations tackle their data storage management problems by identifying their storage resources, monitoring utilization, and optimizing the investments they've made in data storage technology.

Last year, the amount of digital information created, captured and replicated was 161 exabytes -- that's 161 billion gigabytes -- which amounts to three million times the information in all books ever written, according to IDC. By 2010, the information added annually will increase sixfold, to 988 exabytes. While 70% of that data will be created by individuals, organizations in business and government will be responsible for the security, privacy, reliability and compliance of at least 85% of that data.

"Applications are storing more data. Legal discovery requires access to trusted segregated data. Regulations require better protection of data. And increased awareness of the destructive power of natural and manmade threats means that more companies are replicating their data to multiple sites," says Andrew Reichman, an analyst for Forrester Research.

However, while companies are buying more hardware to store data, only a small percentage are allocating budget resources to purchase products to manage it, Reichman says. As the sheer amount of data continues to expand exponentially and challenges increase, SRM tools may start looking like a better solution.

SRM tools help solve complex problems
SRM tools help CIOs maximize investments in storage by using agents to collect data and automate discovery of the data storage devices on the network. These products usually support management tools on multiple operating systems, storage products and devices. Tools come in different forms from niche players to established enterprise providers. Some have interoperability as a goal: the Storage Networking Industry Association promotes programming interfaces that allow software to work with devices from different vendors.

SRM products provide different management functions, some of which include the discovery of devices, capacity management and planning, performance management, reporting, change management, storage design and analysis, provisioning, and workflow automation, according to Gartner. Some focus on giving a window onto the network, discovering hard disks and drawing maps of the network, while some help IT manage disk utilization.

"SRM tools propose to solve these complex problems with robust discovery, reporting, management and analysis capabilities," Reichman says.

Despite the advantages these tools bring, few enterprises have purchased technology tools that allow them to monitor, review, or manage storage environments, Reichman says. In addition, a survey by software vendor MonoSphere concluded that 83% of those surveyed are increasing spending on storage, and 41% of the respondents report that storage spending is rising faster than their IT budgets as a whole, causing a financial burden and impeding spending on other important IT projects.

"It is shocking that companies are willing to spend the millions of dollars that they do without tools to effectively see and report on what they have," Forrester's Reichman says. "SRM seems to always fall into the 'nice to have' category in purchase prioritization, while firms struggle with reactive fire drills, low utilization, and Stone Age tools to manage their cutting-edge investments."

Getting the most out of SRM software
To maximize the benefits of SRM software, Reichman recommends taking the following steps:

• Free up staff Implementing SRM tools is challenging and time consuming, so unless staff are assigned the task, other pressing IT demands will take precedence. Involve the team in the purchase process, plan for training needs, assign a lead administrator for the tools, and consider adding staff to free up resources.
• Anticipate problems and be proactive Don't expect the tools to fix problems -- rather, use them to identify problems. "The tool is only valuable if people read the data, so plan ways to get it in front of the right people and promote decision making from it," Reichman says.
• Evaluate the tools There is no one-size-fits-all tool. There are many different approaches to solving the storage management problem, so identify what's important to the organization, such as interoperability, product features and capabilities of the different approaches.

"Until companies bite the bullet and spend money and resources on implementing SRM tools, they will not be able to succeed with next-generation storage management activities," Reichman says. That includes such facets of the IT operation as capacity management, increasing utilization levels, workload sharing, storage virtualization, chargeback, customer-focused orientation, and efficient storage administration.

Jodi Mardesich writes about business and technology. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Fortune, San Jose Mercury News, Salon and Slate.