SAN Adoption Is Widespread

Storage Area Network (SAN) growth continues to rise steadily, according to the 2003 Information System Spending study published in June by Computer Economics, Inc. The study analyzed SAN deployment trends across every major industry sector, as well as by organizational size. The study divided industry size rankings as follows:

• Small companies – Under $250 million in annual revenues
• Medium companies – $250 million to $750 million in annual revenues
• Large companies – Over $750 million in annual revenues

Fifty-six percent of the large companies in the 2003 study reported they now have at least one SAN system in place, while 32% of medium companies and 31% of small companies reported a current production SAN environment. While current adoption is strong across all three sizes of companies, it is clear that the largest of companies have embraced SAN technology significantly more than medium or small companies. Since the early adopters of SAN were chiefly large data center environments, this is not much of a surprise.

Current implementations are strong in large and medium companies, but much less pronounced in small companies. However, many small companies are piloting and researching SAN technology and are watching the evolution of SANs closely. Figure 1 illustrates SAN deployment activity trends across all three sizes of companies.

Figure 1

 

SAN Deployment Activity	In Place	Implementing	Piloting	Researching	No Activity
Large Organizations	56%	18%	2%	14%	10%
Medium Organizations	32%	9%	10%	30%	19%
Small Organizations	31%	2%	10%	24%	33%

 

Although SAN adoption is widespread, many companies have only partially incorporated SAN into their overall storage strategy. As new advances in SAN technology appear on the market, such as high-performance, multi-protocol switches, SAN technology will enjoy even broader industry adoption. Additionally, “next-generation” SAN technology should be much less complex to manage, a key issue today for many organizations.

October 2003