The state of storage: demand for digital assets greater than ever - Storage Networking - Industry Overview

Computer Technology Review, Feb, 2003 by Michael Del Rosso

This year, vendors will roll out better software designed to make storage less expensive, easier to manage, quicker at restoring systems, and more efficient in storing data and delivering information across the network.

Modularity

Modularity in storage solutions will become even more critical than it is today, as customers will want to easily build upon their previous investments and "pay-as-you-grow." We anticipate that, in five years, customers will still be using libraries purchased today and will want to complement them with new products that can be easily mixed and matched. This is the reason Quantum took the approach of highly flexible modularity in automation in its M-series and P-series libraries. Customers can begin very small and scale up to half a Petabyte.

Storage Solutions

Solutions-oriented products will be as common as generic storage systems. Products will be more optimized to solve customer problems, instead of delivering raw technology.

While the debate about the benefits of disk vs. tape for data protection will continue, in the end, it is the protection of information that is important. Today, most experts agree that, in most enterprises, a combination of both disk-based and tape-based data protection will provide the best solution and that both technologies will continue to play a distinct roll in future storage architectures.

Recently, Quantum announced the general availability worldwide of the Quantum DX30, the industry's first disk-based backup product to combine the most valuable functionality of disk and tape into a single system. Quantum's DX-30 disk-based backup solution combines the speed and performance in backup and restore provided by disk and the cost-effective removeability and safety for long-term archiving provided by tape.

Enhanced backup provides an economical way out of this vicious cycle by utilizing low cost; ATA-based disk arrays in the backup process. These arrays become what are known as the "backup target". Rather than directing your backup to a tape drive or tape library, the initial copy of your data is made to the disk based backup target which will obviously have much faster performance characteristics than those commonly associated with tape. Note that this is very different from a cost and reliability perspective than the existing practice of allocating space on your primary array for backup data.

Enhanced backup offers a refreshing change from the "forklift upgrade" that is often required to make comparable advances in backup or restore performance. And what begins as a performance upgrade ends with the satisfaction of knowing that you are better prepared to respond to the data restoration requirements.

Some end user research conducted by Quantum revealed:

* The speed and reliability of tape backup/restore and the high cost of disk-based data protection remain significant customer pain points

* Across applications, customers identify a 2x gap between desired and actual backup time windows

* Existing solutions fall short on cost, proprietary nature, and/or complexity