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Those of you who are interested in odd and arcane
statistics might find interesting the results of a recent
study conducted by the School of Information Management and
Systems at the University of California, Berkeley. The study
finds that over the next three years, humans will create more
original information than was created over the previous 300,000
years. Staggering, to say the least. From a business point
of view, the issue of where to store this information should
give managers more than their share of sleepless nights.
Most companies, especially data intensive ones
that have to process the most amount of data in the least
amount of time, find the problem particularly acute. Not only
are the numbers of electronic records increasing exponentially,
but the size of each file is increasing as well. Storage,
once an afterthought in network planning and design, is now
a primary consideration. Some information technology installations
devote as much as 50-75% of the overall budget to storage
and backup of data.
I'm sure you can identify with some of the culprits
in the information explosion: e-mails with fat attachments,
rich text files, graphics, audio and video, and the volume
of data used to document online transactions. Add all of this
to the fact that many users in an organization commonly have
multiple copies of the same file and you can see where the
information storage crunch is coming from.
"A Storage Area Network (SAN) is
the solution when large amounts of data must be handled
over multiple servers or users on different platforms."
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Two popular options for solving the information
storage logjam are slowly finding their way to Southwest Florida
-- Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices and Storage Area
Networks (SAN). Each has different uses and advantages and
both are good solutions to the data explosion.
Network Attached Storage involves attaching
a new piece of hardware to your network. The device typically
has only one purpose: storage. This may be a server with a
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) or more commonly,
a "plug and play" appliance. Storage appliances are boxes
of generic hard drive space. They may be configured to serve
the needs of one or more departments and should come with
a tape backup unit sufficient to hold all the data that could
be stored on the device. NAS devices are particularly useful
for storing document imaging, high-resolution graphics and
audio/video files. Storage applications can be far less expensive
than a new server because they typically write and retrieve
information rather than perform complex processing.
A Storage Area Network (SAN) is the solution
when large amounts of data must be handled over multiple servers
or users on different platforms. To make all the elements
of a SAN work together, there must be a "brain" - storage
management software that coordinates the network. This software
must be compatible with the software of all the components
and must be regularly updated.
“But savvy - and usually successful
- managers understand the big picture and realize that
while technology can't solve every problem, technology
is essential in some cases.”
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Traditionally, each server has its own storage,
and network servers do not access each other's storage. SANs
are a "sub-network" made of software and hardware designed
solely to store and retrieve shared data. The shared data
is kept secure by mirroring or spreading the data over multiple
drives or servers. Rather than increasing storage for particular
servers or platforms that might negatively impact real-time
processing, a flexible and dedicated SAN can be set aside
for data storage and retrieval.
The technology-challenged manager must think
that as soon as he solves one problem, another one crops up.
And the solution often brings with it a steep price to pay.
But savvy - and usually successful - managers understand the
big picture and realize that while technology can't solve
every problem, technology is essential in some cases. In light
of the information explosion that the University of California
study predicts, finding adequate means to store information
is a necessity. Paying careful attention to this problem may
be a little expensive initially but will more than pay for
itself in the long run as your company becomes more efficient.
Carol Conway is the owner of CRS Technology. She may be contacted
at carol@crsonline.net.
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