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Managing Storage
Trends, Challenges, and Options 
Revised or 2007-2008
Alok Shrivastava Senior Director, Education Services Provided by EMC Corporation
1-800-843-8733www.learningtree.ca
©2007 Learning Tree International. All Rights Reserved.
 
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42.Challenges Faced byIT/Storage Managers . . . . . . . . . . . 53.Complex Storage Environments . . . 6
 
3.1Storage Technology Segments
. . . 64.Formalized Storage Groups . . . . . . 7
4.1Responsibilities
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2Storage Group Size
. . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3Storage Group Skills andPerormance
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.4Sources or Storage Skills
. . . . . . 11
4.5Storage Group skills Model
. . . . . 135.Recommendations andConclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146.EMC Response and Initiatives . . . . 15 About Learning Tree . . . . . . . . . . . 16 About The Author andEMC Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Executive Summary
 
The explosion o data, its criticality, and increasing dependency o business on digital inormation areleading to larger and more complex storage environ-ments that are increasingly challenging to manage.Poorly designed or managed storage inrastructuresput the entire business at risk in the event o acatastrophic ailure. A robust storage inrastructurerequires highly reliable equipment as well as a strong team o experts to manage it eciently.This paper ocuses on storage inrastructure andpresents ndings rom a global survey o more than1,200 IT proessionals. This study will help IT managersbenchmark their plans to the overall trends in theindustry. The rst such study was published in 2006and a large number o IT and storage managers used theinormation to rene their planning and decision-making.
Key Challenges
 IT/storage managers and storage professionalsacross companies of all sizes face the following mission-critical challenges:
• Managing storage growth• Designing, deploying, and managing backup/recovery • Designing, deploying, and managing disaster recovery • Making inormed strategic/big-picture decisions• Designing, deploying, and managing multi-site,multi-vendor environments• Designing and deploying emerging storagetechnologies• Shortage oskilled storage proessionals• Managing data availability/data retention complianceExplosive growth in storage requirements and a widening storage technology knowledge gap across the industry are making all o the above mission-critical tasks evenmore challenging.
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options 
LEARNING TREE INTERNATIONAL
 
White Paper
1-800-843-8733
•
www.learningtree.ca
©2007 Learning Tree International. All Rights Reserved.
 
Complex Storage Environments
Despite the dierences in industry segments and thesizes o data centers, there is a strong consistency across all companies in terms o the technology deployed, storage management practices, andchallenges.Nearly all critical data is now stored on externaldisk storage subsystems. The average usable capacity is approximately 222 TB which is typically spreadacross multiple sites. Growth in storage requirements,larger capacity disks and subsystems, and aordablepricing have allled to large storage congurations.Over 45 percent o responding companies now havemore than 100 TB o usable storage to manage.Storage subsystems, SANs, and backup/recovery technologies are most commonly implemented,ollowed by replication, NAS, and DAS technologies.IP SAN and CAS technologies have started toemerge in these companies. Each o these storagetechnology segments is unique, oering its ownspecic business and operational value.Each requires a dierent set o skills or eectivedesign and management. Lack o knowledge andexpertise in a specic segment can lead to under-deployment o one or more o these technologies.
Criticality o Storage and the Need orFormalized Storage Groups
Storage inrastructure is mission-critical. Losing storage in a catastrophic situation can severely damage a business. When a disaster does occur,inormation on storage sub-systems can be lostpermanently unless a well-designed recovery mechanism has been planned and implemented.In addition to reliable equipment, a well-structuredstorage group o highly skilled proessionals iscritical to build and maintain a high-perormance,high availability storage inrastructure.Storage groups are responsible or overall planning,design, implementation, monitoring, administering,managing, and operations. While the structure o the group, titles, and roles may not be standardized,responsibilities and tasks are common acrosscompanies. A strong correlation was ound between the installedstorage capacity and the size o the storage group. Theratio is high at lower capacities, and it reduces as theinstalled capacity grows. One storage proessional isdeployed to manage every 20 TB (1:20) o usablestorage or installations having up to 100 TB o usablestorage. At500 TB, the ratio reduces to 1:40.Based on IT and storage manager eedback, approx-imately one-hal o existing storage team scan manageSANs, backup and recovery, and storage subsystems.However, only 10–25 percent o the existing storageteams are adequately prepared to manage IP-SAN,CAS, local replication, and NAS. Overall, the managersassess that approx 35 percent o their teams are very capable while the other approximately two-thirds o their teams require urther development.
Storage Technology Knowledge Gap
Participants in this study and their companies have very aggressive plans to hire storage proessionals inthe next 12 months. Their orecasts indicate two to threetimes growth o their existing sta.Managers preer to hire experienced or certied storageproessionals. However, a severe shortage o such skills inthe marketplace is causing managers to resort requently to internal recruitment.The shortage o experienced storage proessionals andthe lack o storage technology education in the market-place and in academics have restricted the growth o inormation storage and management unctions. EMChas taken the lead and has initiated storage technology education by collaborating with several leading universi-ties and IT training companies.
2
Managing Storage: Trends, Challenges, and Options 
1-800-843-8733
•
www.learningtree.ca
 
LEARNING TREE INTERNATIONAL
 
White Paper
©2007 Learning Tree International. All Rights Reserved.
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