Intelligent archiving drives STK ILM strategy: will ILM be its day in the Sun?

Computer Technology Review, June-July, 2005 by Dan Murphy

June was a significant month for Storage Technology Corp. In addition to company's announced acquisition by Sun Microsystems, StorageTek also launched a major effort to enhance its presence in the Information Lifecycle Management market with the introduction of its IntelliStore archive product. IntelliStore archive combines disk and tape in an integrated solution that STK calls intelligent archiving.

To explore the importance of ILM to StorageTek, the strategic significance of IntelliStore and why the acquisition by Sun makes sense, CTR sat down with Brenda Zawatski, vice president and general manager of Storage Technology's Information Lifecycle Management Solutions Division for this month's CTR Interview.

Q: What is the strategic importance of ILM to StorageTek and how does IntelliStore archive fulfill that mission?

A: ILM really has a number of aspects to it. Being more front and center, we have a tremendously strong technology background in our company in terms of intellectual property, in terms of great technologists. ILMS gives us two flavors to bring to market. One is obviously for growth and we've been known as a tape company for a long time and we do excellent in talking about the technology and the technologists. They've been superior in tape technology. We're the industry leaders in a lot of areas, VT and things like that. Now we're taking it to the next step with Information Lifecycle Management--we actually coined the phrase--and it's time to start delivering on that and by delivering on that it's two fold: delivering on the products and also delivering topline growth for the company.

Q: So in a way you're leveraging the existing technology base to move into ILM?

A: Exactly. We're leveraging the infrastructure as ILM--to quote a cliche, the right data at the right place at the right time--and a lot of times that's going to mean tape, sometimes it's going to mean disk. It's not always one or the other; it's a combination of both. And it's very specific on the application, the data and the customer needs to make some decisions based on their specific environment. Some things are very common across the board. E-mail will stay active for two weeks or 30 days but after that the decision's been made, whatever crisis has happened is past, but if you haven't read your e-mail for a month and you go back everything's happened.

IntelliStore gives you the flexibility to say keep it on disk for the first 30 days or the first 15 days as in our company. We have triggers on size and on age and then they'll actually start archiving it off out of your in box and move it to a cheaper storage medium.

In that case you're probably never going to move it back. I may actually click on it and notice that it takes a little bit longer--it may take 8 to 10 seconds to actually get it back versus the instantaneous.

However, there are other applications where you're going to move it back. Part of ILMS is data at the right place at the right time. I always use the example of financial data because most people can understand that one. Within a given quarter you're watching the expenses come in every day and watching he revenue click up every day and then consolidate it all a month after closing and you show it to Wall Street and you stockholder and say here's what we've done here's our performance and here's why.

Next quarter comes and that data is pretty stale. You're not doing quarter-to-quarter comparison you're doing year-to-year comparison. So you can move that current quarter data with the exception of that consolidated version. You can move that off to tape. For a while and at year end or you can leave it on tape. Really you're only looking at the quarterly version once a year. Right now I'm looking at second quarter of last year vs. second quarter of 2005. And that's when I need the rapid access of that information.

And again, I go to Wall Street and off it goes to tape because you're probably not going to use it again. If you are, it's probably for some special analysis that lets me see how cyclical my revenue was in a given quarter. Did 40 percent of it come in the last quarter, or break it up by channel. Did my channel give me a constant revenue stream or did it also spike up at the end of the quarter like my direct channel did? So you can look at trends and things of that nature. But the ability to move back and forth is the key and it's not the only way. You can do that manually. It's the idea of moving it back and forth and all the associated people expenses.

So from StorageTek's perspective it's critical componentry and it's leveraging customer investments. For us it's an adjacent space to where we are in tape. So the next logical thing is how do I leverage what I've already invested in, or my customers have invested in and be able to use that in a broader scheme. It's all about two things: taking risk out their business and giving them a better ROI on their IT, because nobody's got a growing budget.

Q: How does STK define ILM?