Faced with data requirements that continually outpace the amount of direct-attached storage available, many IT managers are moving to storage area networks (SAN). Experiences of early adopters are showing excellent results. In a recent poll conducted by Computer Economics, almost every organization that has brought a SAN into its infrastructure has experienced a favorable return on their investment.
SAN technology, however, is still a work in progress. The many elements involved in successfully tying multi-vendor SAN solutions into a viable heterogeneous platform is a difficult challenge–almost always requiring specialized knowledge and skills. Additionally, the availability of industrial-strength software to effectively manage the demands of a diverse, large-scale virtual storage pool is still lacking. In spite of these shortcomings, our research indicates that a large number of organizations have jumped on the SAN bandwagon.
Figure 1 illustrates that 66% of the respondents in our recent survey were actively engaged in using SAN-based storage management, while 17% were developing implementation plans. Only 17% of the survey respondents had no plans to implement SAN technology at this time.
A detailed report on our recent SAN technology survey can be found in our ROI & TCO research section. This look into the current state of SAN storage management provides insights into the economics of the technology, strategies for lowering the risks of implementation, ROI benchmarks, and considerations of near-term solutions coming to market.
April 2003
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