Storage Networking Times

Issue 6, October 2007

Myths Uncovered: What Is In Fact Data Storage All About?
Rostislav Jirkal, Chair, Czech and Slovak Committee, czech-slovakchair@snia.org

There are terms where the meaning does not change with time -- sun, earth, mathematics have meant the same thing for hundreds of years. However, the meaning of other terms has evolved. In the dynamic world of IT for example the term “data storage” has come to indicate data archiving, management, classification and much more. I have been personally working in the field of data storage for more than fifteen years. Our perceptions of what “data storage” actually means are constantly changing, yet imperceptibly; this is why we also do not notice them on a daily basis.

To refresh my memory, I looked up an article from seven years ago. You can perhaps remember – the booming 90s were behind us, and so were the concerns about Y2K, and the future looked bright. The first disk arrays with a 1TB capacity had just appeared on the market, and we thought that IT budgets were bottomless. So what happened?

That article covered all the issues related to data accessibility and data recovery, protection against loss, and everything was discussed in a strict technical sense. Heterogeneity, connectivity and interoperability were mentioned repeatedly.

Then a few quarters later it looked like the solution to all issues was virtualisation; new flavours of virtualisation engines were hailed as the key to the future of data storage.

Only towards the half of the current decade did data storage proponents realise that the ultimate objective must be the real customer needs. Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) was the first step towards the connection between the data storage infrastructure and the customer’s business requirements. The issues related to data storage were no longer a myth and a subject related purely to technology. Suddenly it was obvious that the business, its processes and the challenges faced by the organisation have more of an impact on the suitability of a storage infrastructure than capacity, speeds and feeds.

As the focus on capacity, speeds and feeds faded away, then other topics started to appear under the data storage umbrella. The best example of this is security where we started to accept that computer security fell under data storage, including the protection of information, authentication and data encryption.

So what does data storage mean today? It refers to a solution designated to store information and its value as it changes over time. It includes the technical side of storage, how data is transferred between different repositories and how the servers and application layer allows users to visualize it. Besides the physical protection against loss of information or loss of access to this information, data storage comprises all aspects of protection against non-authorized access, possibility of modification or any other misuse of the stored data. And last but not least it allows users to work with information in line with the developing requirements set by the new regulations and legislation created by several bureaucratic entities in the of modern society at both national and international level.

I hope the above will help eradicate the myth that data storage is only about storing and retrieving information. Although this discussion is naturally not exhaustive and it will become more so as data storage evolves, it is clear today that our industry is now a key part of the IT equation, and a critical element of an organization’s ability to be competitive. And the sooner end users understand and embrace this shift, the sooner they can focus on increasing performance, compliance and bottom line.

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