What Is Our Current Data Storage Capacity?

Storage capacity, current data volume, and rate of growth are the three minimum pieces of information required to determine when more storage capacity is needed. Organizations should keep close tabs on these three metrics. Many people speak of storage capacity in terms of how much disk drive capacity they have. Hard disks are not the only media data is stored on. Hard drives are commonly used for primary online storage and tape or other removable media (e.g. optical disk) for backup. Industry offers compelling technology and solutions to store data online or near-line on tape and optical based media but hard drives are most prevalent. When conducting enterprise capacity planning, planners should examine all tiers of storage. Ultimately, data should be categorized by business value and stored in a tier of storage that provides the appropriate level of performance and protection.

Considering that data storage costs comprise as much as 15 percent of IT operational spending and up to 20 percent of IT capital spending[i], storage capacity and data volumes are worthy of management attention. Enterprise IT usage policies and storage quotas are key controls for managing the growth of data. Strategic planning and development of an enterprise data life cycle policy and associated procedures can help organizations eliminate unneeded data and reclaim data storage space.

Management of storage capacity requires the ability to routinely monitor it. Manual monitoring of storage capacity is impractical in large environments. A storage resource management tool can provide automated monitoring and control of many storage resources. For more information on storage resource management tools, see my paper “How Much Data Do We Have?”

When examining hard drive media capacity, IT management needs to understand there is a significant difference between raw capacity and usable capacity. This is an extremely important fact to keep in mind when dealing with storage equipment vendor sales personnel. The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) defines usable capacity of a disk as “…the total formatted capacity of the disk.” Formatted capacity does not include raw capacity reserved for metadata, disk size equalization, or check data. Usable capacity is the number to focus on when shopping for additional disk based storage.

The amount of usable capacity available from a given raw capacity varies depending upon how the disk or array of disks is configured. RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) configuration has a significant impact on the ratio of raw space to usable capacity. For example an array of disks configured for RAID 1, in which all data is mirrored, will use two units of raw capacity for every unit of usable storage. Therefore an array with 50 TBs of raw capacity configured for RAID 1 will yield less approximately 25 TBs of usable capacity.

To read my entire white paper on this topic, go to http://www.storagestrategies.com/data_storage_strategies_whitepapershome.html

[i] Corporate Executive Board

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

Interview with Karen Evans, Outgoing CIO of OMB

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Karen Evans the CIO of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). For those a little rusty on your Civics, OMB supports execution of the President’s management agenda and oversees the departments and agencies in the Executive branch of the Federal Government. Big job. Ms. Evans has been responsible for implementing a management framework to manage IT as a portfolio and strategic investment. She was quick to point out that although IT is a strategic asset, it is also just an enabler of the mission. Her comments were very candid and caveated by the fact that she’s got 30 days left in her job. She was unwilling to comment on any forward looking projections regarding the next Administration but offered that the Transition Team seemed to respect the basic management framework OMB has used to review IT strategic plans, progress toward those plans, and portfolio investments.

Parting shots she had to offer:

• The Government needs to continue to work on structuring contracts to ensure vendors are incented to behave in ways that benefit the customer.
• Industry should look for niches where there’s a need and the Government’s struggling on developing a solution, develop a solution, and relieve the Government of the burden of development.
• Industry must demonstrate the ability to deliver solutions and services while meeting Government requirements for transparency (FOIA), data quality, security, and privacy.
• The most significant challenge going forward is managing risk while delivering on mission and ensuring the above requirements are satisfied.

I have to admit, going in; I was expecting to hear a little more talk about IT from U.S. Government’s senior CIO. But, in retrospect, it makes sense the person responsible for overseeing the planning and execution of over $60B of Federal spending on IT would be more focused on wise management of those resources rather than the sizzle.