How Fast Is Our Data Volume Growing?

While there is certainty that more and more data will be stored over time, the question is how much data and how fast? IDC reports that enterprise data stores will grow an average of 60 percent annually. This number will fluctuate depending on the enterprise. Using a rough guess for annual capacity planning may be effective but is also very wasteful. IDC also reports that across the industry disk utilization rates range from 28-35%. In order to avoid wasting up to 65% of corporate investment on data storage capacity, some detailed trend analysis is required.

• It is very important to understand the growth rate by type of data. Examination of volume growth trends by type can help storage managers identify possible system problems and anomalous user behavior.
• Data storage managers should collect data and regularly report to management on changes in the volume of data stored
• Data storage managers should keep a weather eye on opportunities to reduce the data volume through elimination of unnecessary or duplicate data and archiving.
• IT management can help abate the unstrained growth of data through user education and policy.

Despite the fact that the relative cost of computer data storage media per unit volume has fallen 63 percent since 1998[i], the overwhelming data volume growth is causing storage costs to grow rapidly. Industry has responded to the market’s need for more intelligent storage of data. A tiered storage model and data deplication solutions have entered the main stream and can help economize on data storage investments.

To read my entire white paper on this topic, go to www.storagestrategies.com

[i] Bureau of Labor and Statistics Producer Price Index for computer storage media. http://data.bls.gov

How Much Data Do We Have?

Capturing the total amount of data stored can be challenging depending on what applications are in use and how users behave. Centralized application data and corporately hosted personal or shared directory data are generally easy to locate. However, if users are permitted to, or are in the habit of storing data locally, identifying and accounting for all user data can be tremendously challenging.

In order for management to answer this question, it will need to employ some sort of monitoring tool to detect and report on data stored on all disk arrays, servers, and workstations. A number of tools that can collect and report this data exist. A snap shot of meta data from all existing files provides a rudimentary core of information to analyze. However, in order to effectively manage data storage over time regular detailed reports are necessary.

To read my white paper, "How Much Data Do We Have?", which includes a list of leading SRM solutions, go to our web site at: www.storagestrategies.com