technologies under control? In
this, the fourth entry in the IT Leadership Series, leading
storage vendors and their customers reveal how to transform
storage into a strategic ally.
STORAGE
stora
g
e
T H E S T R A T E G I C W E A P O N
A
S
S
E E N
I
N
CP471-IT LeadershipStorage 12 11/27/01 4:46 PM Page 1 I
nformation explosion? Data deluge is more like it.
And CXOs and IT managers are struggling to
keep their companies from drowning, even as new
data-driving apps come on line; old ones are
extended to more customers, partners, and suppliers;
and everyone in the organizationfrom sales and
marketing to human resourceswants the chance
to dig into that data and see what trends and
tendencies it may reveal.
Sink or swim? IT managers already know that
storage systems are all that stand between them and
the floodand their budgets reflect their reliance on
repositories. According to Dan Warmenhoven, CEO
of Network Appliance (Sunnyvale, Calif.), storage is
now the fastest-growing portion of the IT budget.
By 2003, he notes, storage expenditures will be triple
what they were in 1999. And every year, each
dollar buys twice as much storage capacity as it
did the year before.
IT professionals are definitely spending more
on storage. And theyre getting more for their
moneyat least in terms of bytes per buck. But truly
bringing storage under control means finding ways to
consolidate distributed systems and leverage IT staff. It
means paying attention to availability, performance,
and system administration/management. And it
means making recovery and auditing part of the
storage strategy from the start, without neglecting
basic issues like ease of use and customer service.
S3
w w w. t e c h w e b . c o m / a d v e r t i s i n g / s t o r a g e
Special Advertising Section
storage
T H E S T R A T E G I C W E A P O N
STRATEGIC STORAGE CAN MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SURVIVING
TODAYS INFORMATION EXPLOSION AND BEING BLOWN AWAY BY IT
v i s i o n s
N E X T - G E N E R A T I O N S T O R A G E F O R T H I S G E N E R A T I O N S I T B U D G E T
In todays tight times, the explo-
sion in storage volume has
brought IT budgets to the break-
ing point. Storage consumption,
in bytes, is increasing 140 per-
cent a year. Storage systems
now dominate IT budgetsfor
both equipment and labor costs. Its impossible to bring
on more staff as the volume increases, so IT departments
must find ways to increase productivity.
At Network Appliance, we think of ourselves as the
next generation of storage systems. Our mission is
illustrated in the word appliance. We develop storage
and content delivery solutions that are easy to install and
operate, including automated functions that once were
performed manually.
Customers should view storage as a single infrastruc-
ture, distinct from servers, much as they view networks as
a single infrastructure. This storage infrastructure is not
only disk drives but also data management services.
Our architecture is unique: We use intelligent software
that offers reliability and one of the highest-performing,
lowest TCO solutions on the market. We believe
customers should use their existing network infrastructure
as the primary interconnect for storage subsystems, and
were developing solutions to advance storage over IP.
When customers think about their future-proof storage
needs coupled with tight budgets and staff reductions,
they will conclude that NetApp has the most competitive
product in the industry.
w w w . n e t a p p . c o m
D A N W A R M E N H O V E N
CEO, Network Appliance, Sunnyvale, Calif.
S T O R A G E : A D V I C E F R O M T H E E X P E RT S
View storage as a separate infrastructure, a separate network
that extends to disk drives and data management
Clustering can add big bonuses to storage,
starting with scalability and reliability
Bringing distributed systems under central control reduces
IT staffing and helps hold down cost of ownership
Understanding how data relates to business is the key to
appropriate disaster recovery plans
SEPARATE REALITIES:
CLUSTERING CONCERNS:
CONSIDER CONSOLIDATION:
REALISTIC RECOVERY:
CP471-IT LeadershipStorage 12 11/27/01 4:46 PM Page 3 THE BIG SQUEEZE
Thomas Georgens, the president of LSI Logic
Storage Systems (Milpitas, Calif.) agrees that
consolidation is the key to squeezing the most out
of storage systems. He also understands that IT
managers are getting squeezed themselves.
Its a familiar story: IT is under huge pressure
to operate as economically as possible and limit
cost of ownershiptrends that will only continue,
notes Georgens, given the current economic
climate. Bringing distributed storage into a
central location, he continues, can do both,
allowing organizations to reduce or reassign staff,
eliminate redundant facilities, and start to get
costs under control.
But Georgens also offers a caveat. If you are
going to consolidate storage, the bar on availability
and performance is raised dramatically. Georgens
advice to CXOs: Price is important but availability
is essential.
KEEP IT UP
Uptime is just another word for availability. Its also
an essential issue for Henry Jenkins, the vice president
of First American Trust FSB (Santa Ana, Calif.). The
bank relies on Network Appliances f740C storage
system, both to maintain customer files and to track
and service electronic transfers from other financial
institutions. The latter application is especially important,
since First American serves as a clearinghouse for
electronic transfers from member banks.
Uptime in this situation, isnt just a question of
cooperation or courtesy. The bank handles between
$1 billion and $2 billion in wire transfers each day. As
Jenkins explains, One missed wire transfer can mean
$30,000 to $40,000 in overnight interest penalties.
Downtime is clearly not an option.
Whats more, the f740C, which holds up to
1 Tbyte, takes a snapshot of everything on disk
once an hour. Thus if theres ever a problem, the
recovered data is no more than one hour old.
That sort of precaution can be critical, says
Sabrinath Rao, product manager for enterprise
backup at Computer Associates International, Inc.
(Islandia, N.Y.). He indicates that CA products can
take data snapshots every 15 minutes. This tight
threshold was a lifesaver for a large financial firm
affected by the September 11 attacks. Although its
offices were on Wall Street rather than in the World
Trade Center, one of its data centers was knocked out
of service. The firm was able to restore business-critical
information from tape to disk within 20 minutes.
THE NEED FOR SPEED
But availability is just part of the performance picture.
Raw speed can be equally critical, according to
Steve Gardner, manager of product marketing at
LSI Logic Storage Systems.
LSI customers include energy companies
involved in seismic exploration for oil reserves.
Typically, they need to do very complex modeling on
very large data sets, ranging from 3.5 to 7 Tbytes.
S4
w w w. t e c h w e b . c o m / a d v e r t i s i n g / s t o r a g e
v i s i o n s
S T O R A G E : T H E K E Y T O B U I L D I N G T O M O R R O W S B U S I N E S S
Business runs on information.
Information resides on storage.
The conclusion: Effective, effi-
cient storage is critical both to
meeting todays goals and to
building tomorrows business.
This strategic relationship holds true for conventional
companies, which rely on storage to maintain CRM and
ERP applications; online businesses like amazon.com,
which capture transactions 24/7 and have no room for
downtime; and services like the SECs EDGAR, in which
the stored information is the business.
Over the past few years, in fact, weve seen the rise
of business models that would be impossible without
high-speed, high-availability storage. Dells top-velocity
approach to operations, for example, redefines
just-in-time thanks to real-time access to critical
inventory and order data. Oracles round-the-clock/
round-the-world software development demands
superbly managed centralized storage and guaranteed
access wherever/whenever needed.
At LSI Logic Storage Systems, weve proven our
products in some of the most demanding data centers
in the world. We understand that the ability to access,
share, manipulate, and manage data is critical to making
smarter business decisions. We know that protecting
data is key to business continuance. And we can
demonstrate that our storage systems will outperform
any product in the industry. Storage is the core of our
business, just as it is the cornerstone of yours.
w w w . l s i l o g i c s t o r a g e . c o m
T H O M A S G E O R G E N S
President
LSI Logic Storage Systems, Inc., Milpitas, Calif.
Special Advertising Section
(Continued on pg.S8)
CP471-IT LeadershipStorage 12 11/27/01 4:46 PM Page 4 Whats the hurry? First, these analyses help
companies decide which plots of land they want to
bid on. Since auction dates are set long in advance,
the more iterations a company can run through, the
better the odds of sinking money into the right piece
of real estate.
Second, since it costs $50 million to drill a well,
there are compelling economic reasons for bringing
in a gusher. Having a rig sit idle while you analyze
data, Gardner says, is a very pricey proposition.
He estimates that delaying a decision to drill can
cost $1 million to $5 million a month.
And what do LSI customer looking to strike it rich
rely on? Gardner points to the E-Series family of
Fibre Channel-connected s