Storage vendors are building more capacity and bandwidth into hard disk arrays for small to medium-sized enterprises. But like their larger corporate cousins, smaller firms may need to start thinking more carefully about the data they store and how they store it.
NetApp became the latest firm to unveil high-capacity SAS-based disk arrays for smaller companies earlier this month. Its 2U 24.6TB FAS2020 external disk array (priced from about £7,000 + VAT) accommodates up to 12 internal SAS drives, while the 69TB FAS2050 handles up to 20. Both devices will also be sold by NetApp’s OEM partner IBM as the N3000 series.
John Rollason, NetApp’s product marketing manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa, classifies mid-size firms as those with up to 1,000 employees. He believes that while these companies may not need enhanced data storage space or I/O performance now, it is just a matter of time before older disk arrays reach the limits of their capacity.
“People migrate [to new hardware] as and when they need to on a usage basis. It is really about consolidating DAS or NAS [direct- or network-attached storage] and supporting business continuity and virtualisation,” added Rollason.
NetApp also introduced two new configuration and consultancy services to help smaller companies get to grips with the new technology. The Rapid Deployment Service aims to quickly set up and configure the FAS2020 and 2050 devices, while the Storage Availability Audit Service provides a periodic audit of companies’ storage infrastructures
“We find that, essentially, these companies have very similar [storage] requirements to larger enterprises: complexity, power, space and data protection are the main concerns. The difference is that they do not have the resources to go out and build their own architecture,” said Rollason.
A NetApp-sponsored survey of 1,000 IT managers at mid-size firms in eight different countries found that data storage requirements had grown by more than 20 per cent over the past year for over half those questioned. Most cited the increased flow of internal documents as the major source of this extra data ­ particularly in the government and healthcare sectors, where the burden of compliance weighs more heavily.
The survey also found that keeping up with the latest storage technology and finding the right staff to manage storage resources is a challenge for many firms.
“Smaller companies are generally not good at keeping up with technology, though some industries are better than others,” said senior Ovum analyst Graham Titterington. “Those in the financial services sector are quick to adopt new technology, for example, though not particularly because they are bright guys, they just have more money to chuck around. It also depends on how quickly a particular IT problem needs to be solved.”
Titterington believes that email archiving is the biggest problem for the majority of mid-size enteprises, arguing that regulatory compliance issues tend to affect only the largest corporates.
“The other problem is the richness of data [being stored], because people are no longer storing only text-based documents but also images, PDF files, sound files and even video clips,” Titterington added.
The growth of distributed databases that can consume terabytes of space in multiple locations is also pushing up capacity requirements. Raj Sabh, chief executive of Embarcadero Technologies, said that companies can use tools that help them design, develop and maintain large databases more efficiently so they do not take up as much space, however.
“There are many things you can do with the database, such as compare and synchronise two different copies stored in different locations, for example,” Sabh said. “We also have tools that allow you to track data usage patterns, particularly relevant in data warehouse environments that might want to shrink down a large database that is full of stuff that nobody accesses.”
Titterington agreed that any software tool that helps companies keep closer tra ck of the data they are storing, in order to identify what should and should not be retained, is a good idea.
“Ideally, the answer is for companies to be more tidy with their housekeeping, but deleting files is time consuming and, with storage getting cheaper, it is usually cheaper to just buy more capacity,” Titterington explained.
“Another approach is to cut out multiple copies of the same file, either by using improved email or file management systems, or deploying data de-duplication solutions,” he added.