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Planning a Storage Strategy, The Book:

Storing and retrieving data are vital functions to almost all companies. Planning for meeting the demands for storage in capacity, performance, data protection including security, storage management, and availability is really a business process that must take into consideration both business and technical factors. For most companies, this has been dealt with in a reactionary manner by relying on the talents of the storage professionals responsible to handle the situations as they occur. It is equally important to plan for regulatory compliance, business continuity, and operational efficiency.

This book introduces developing a storage strategy over a three to five year timeframe and a plan for implementing the storage strategy. Any storage strategy considers future requirements, integration of technologies and the risk associated, and meeting the current needs with a tactical plan. The book highlights the necessary information and a method for obtaining and analyzing the requirements as well as understanding the future technology impacts. Planning for technology change is one of the most overlooked elements in Information Technology. The process to employ in gathering information and making judgments regarding what and how to integrate into the storage strategy are highlighted in this book.

Table of Contents

 

1 Introduction 1
What is a storage strategy? 2
Who is responsible for the storage strategy? 4
Storage is more than just devices 4
The Ins and Outs of a Storage strategy 5
Storage is a critical business 8
Storage doesn’t necessarily mean complexity 11
2 Business Issues 12
Storage Investment 12
Importance of Storage 14
Competitiveness in Business 16
Visibility of Failure 17
Storage Demand 18
Continuous Operation 19
Complexity 21
Effective Use of Resources 22
Investment Value 23
Consistency in Storage Strategy Implications 26
3 Requirements 27
Business Requirements 27
How to Deliver Capacity and Business Continuity 28
Security of Information 29
Risk Management 31
Availability Requirements 32
Security Requirements 37
Financial Operation Requirements 41
Major Change Requirements 42
Measurement Requirements – Total Cost of Ownership 42
Measurement Requirements – Return On Investment 44
Obtaining the Requirements 46
Regular Business Process 47
4 Storage Strategy Components 48
Storage Environment – Architecture 48
Storage Management 54
Disk Systems 59
Tape Systems 66
NAS Systems 70
Storage Device Special Features 75
Services 80
Operational Procedures 83
Organization 83
Business Procedures 84
Standards vs. “Standardize” 85
Strategic Developments 88
Future Technologies 88
Storage Virtualization 90
SCSI – Internet SCSI 94
InfiniBand 99
RDMA – Remote Direct Memory Access 100
Storage Grid 102
Global Namespace 105
De-duplication 107
Continuous Data Protection 107
5 Strategic Decisions 111
Sources for Storage Information 111
Education 114
Product Information 115
Procedures 117
Decision Process 120
Time 121
Technology Turns 122
Tactics 122
Validation 126
Critical Choices 126
Selling the Strategy 128
6 Development of the Strategy 130
Get the Requirements 132
Storage Infrastructure 139
Storage Management 141
Strategic Initiatives 144
Storage Practices 148
7 Recommendations 150
Work with IT Staff 150
Cross Area Exposure 153
Business Economics Education 153
Managing to a Process 153
Implementation of the Storage Strategy 156
Evaluate and Measure Effectiveness 158
Refine the Process 159
8 Summary 161
Appendix 163
Index 169
About Randy Kerns 172

 

This book will be mailed upon ordering

 

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Document Type:

Technology:

Date:

January 1, 2008

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