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YOUR OCEAN OF DATAStorage Needs for the Vast Digital Age

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

STORAGE STRATEGIC

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The Foundation for a New Data-Intensive Business Environment

More than ever before, storage is a strategic component of the enterprise IT environment, essential for meeting productivity, agility, compliance, and cost‑efficiency goals. With exponential growth in data storage, thanks to increased reliance on business analytics and metrics‑based management, it is clear that storage infrastructure must evolve to meet demand.

That said, many enterprise storage administrators continue to address storage the way they have for decades, adding capacity as needed. This approach can waste money and time, while undermining the enterprise’s ability to meet its goals.

DON’T LET YOUR STORAGE DRAG DOWN YOUR BUSINESS. AS YOU GROW, UPGRADE, AND REPLACE YOUR AGING STORAGE, INVEST WISELY IN NEXT-GENERATION SOLUTIONS THAT WILL DELIVER WHAT YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS.

STORAGE IS STRATEGIC

STORAGE FLEXIBLE

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* Frost & Sullivan 2014 Cloud User Survey. Fully one‑third of IT decision‑makers surveyed cited “growth of data storage” as their top data center challenge.

Why Yesterday’s Storage Solution Can’t Handle Tomorrow’s Data Demands

Storage growth ranks as the top concern of data center managers, according to a recent Frost & Sullivan survey.* And no wonder. Businesses are collecting, storing, analyzing, consuming, replicating, protecting, and archiving volumes of data that are growing by double digits each year. A storage environment established to handle a relative trickle of data is not equipped for the never‑ebbing torrent that businesses now face. This introduces three types of challenges:

SOARING COSTS: Continually adding incremental units of capacity to your current storage system takes a big bite out of the capital budget—and never allows you to catch up.

PERFORMANCE DEGRADATION: A storage solution that is not engineered to handle multiple, rapid‑fire queries across large volumes of data can negatively impact application performance—leading to productivity loss and customer dissatisfaction.

AVAILABILITY RISK: Replicating and restoring large volumes of dynamic data can become a physics challenge with a traditional storage system; critical data can be lost if the system is not designed to support real‑time disaster recovery.

STORAGE IS FLEXIBLE

DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE TORRENT OF DATA SHUTS DOWN CRITICAL OPERATIONS. FOR YOUR NEXT STORAGE INVESTMENT. CHOOSE A NEXT-GENERATION SYSTEM WITH THE FOLLOWING FIVE FEATURES.

STORAGE AVAILABILITY

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Engineered Right In

Downtime costs your business in revenue, productivity, and customer satisfaction. To support critical business applications in a 24/7 economy, your data must always be accessible to the users and applications that need it. When data availability is essential, you need “greater than 6‑9’s availability”—that is, assurance that the storage systems will operate 99.9999% of the time. That translates to cumulative downtime of approximately 30 seconds per year.

It takes more than a business continuity plan to achieve such a high level of availability. It requires a storage system that is engineered to support fast, accurate, and continual replication via data mirroring.

HIGH AVAILABILITY

Look for a storage system with automated data-mirroring functionality to create duplicate copies of data at multiple remote sites and provide users with immediate access to the data in the event of an outage.

FEATURE ONE

STORAGE PERFORMANCE

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Processing Power and More

Today’s data is working harder than ever. Databases are fielding simultaneous queries from a variety of applications and users, ranging from simple requests to complex algorithms.

Storage performance begins with the processor—so be sure the system you choose utilizes the latest generation of powerful processors. But don’t stop there. The system must be designed so the software and hardware are optimally engineered to deliver the highest levels of performance, with processors strategically built into all layers of the system.

PERFORMANCE

Look for an intelligent system that balances processing power across requests to ensure maximum data throughput with greatest efficiency.

FEATURE TWO

STORAGE AUTOMATION

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Doing the Work so You Don’t Have to

If your data increases tenfold, it shouldn’t take 10 times more effort to manage it. Spare your team the effort of manually migrating and re‑mapping data across available resources when performance gets sluggish. Instead, let your storage system do the work, with automated functionality and sophisticated user tools.

Automated functionality may include a self‑tuning, high‑capacity cache that optimizes workloads in real time; automated placement of data in the optimal storage tier; and automated tools for managing quality of service.

AUTOMATIONFEATURE THREE

Look for systems with automation in the areas that will deliver maximum value to your storage environment.

STORAGE HYBRID

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No Storage is an Island

If your business is like most, your applications and storage are running on a variety of hardware—including venerable mainframe systems as well as servers. Your databases and the applications that access them may reside in the cloud as well as in the data center. Your primary and backup centers may be continents apart.

Your storage solution needs to be able to support the new hybrid reality.

HYBRIDFEATURE FOUR

Look for a system that offers a robust and open management platform that enables visibility across a variety of environments and locations, as well as consistent performance regardless of hardware.

STORAGE FLASH OR DISK?

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You Shouldn’t Have to Choose

Flash technology delivers the highest levels of speed and reliability. Disk storage delivers cost‑effective, reliable performance. Which is right for your next‑generation storage solution?

The answer is: both. Some data is highly sensitive, some is less so. Some data requires continual updates, some only occasional updates. Some data applications are latency‑sensitive, some are more tolerant. As a result, your storage solution should support both flash and disk media, enabling you to choose the right technology for each database or application.

FLASH OR DISK?FEATURE FIVE

Look for a system that supports both flash and disk media.

STORAGE NEXT STEPS

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Starting on the Path to Storage Efficiency

Building a storage foundation to move your business forward does not require a forklift upgrade. Instead, choose a flexible storage system that allows you to move at your own pace. Look for a system that will:

LEVERAGE your existing infrastructure environment, including mainframes

SUPPORT a hybrid storage environment

GROW in functionality (not just capacity) as business needs change.

NEXT STEPS

DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE UNENDING TORRENT OF DATA PARALYZES YOUR CURRENT STORAGE SYSTEM. PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS AND PREPARE FOR THE DATA-DRIVEN FUTURE WITH A POWERFUL AND EFFICIENT NEXT-GENERATION STORAGE SYSTEM.