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The article highlights the views of data storage professionals regarding the future of storage area network (SAN). Jackie Ross of Cisco Systems Inc. suggests that by 2013, the amount of networked storage will increase to 70 percent. Cisco predicts switches to be capable of providing networking services, such as firewalls, load balancing and other quality of service (QoS) functionality. Kyle Fitze of Hewlett-Packard forecasts that most of the storage will be ultra-high-density arrays packing large numbers of drives into small footprints. Server virtualization will continue to complicate storage management, according to Joseph Zhou of Ideas International.

This article explores a data storage consolidation project initiated by the state government of Missouri. According to the article, the project consisted of consolidating the information technology (IT) operations of 16 state cabinet agencies into the state's central mainframe data center. It notes that the data center boosted the network fabric to accommodate the open-systems storage traffic. It reveals that the biggest technical challenge of the project turned out to be not the servers or storage but the network.

The article discusses the myths surrounding data deduplication and offers tips on navigating the deduplication landscape. According to Lauren Whitehouse of Enterprise Strategy Group says the popularity of secondary storage and archival systems with single storage has grown. Deduplication reduces the amount of storage capacity required through the analysis of data for unique repetitive patterns which are stored as shorter symbols. Deduplication myths include in-line deduplication is better than post-processing and proprietary algorithms deliver better results.

The article offers tips on how to decide which virtual server back up method to choose. While server virtualization simplifies information technology (IT), it is said to be complicating backup and recovery systems. According to Scott Polly of Vizioncore Inc., virtual servers are easy to backup if they will be treated like physical servers, but the benefits of server virtualization will not be achieved. John Dolan of Viant Solutions admits that the immaturity of server virtualization makes it difficult to get clear documentation. Jon Bock of VMware suggest installing a backup agent on each virtual server.

The article focuses on trends in the hard disk drive market. The technology, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006, has been a main product in the computer storage industry. According to Mike Karp, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), the hard disk technology has become crucial in the storage market because of serial attached Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) and the shift to the 2.5-inch form factor. Dell is using these 2.5-inch server drives in its new PowerVault MD1120, which can store up to 144 drives in 12U of rack space

The article focuses on the large storage capacity needed for electronic medical records (EMR). This requirement has had a big impact on information technology (IT). One problem is that a number of healthcare providers are still far from having IT infrastructure, storage and network bandwidth to accommodate the widespread use of EMR. This is further complicated by a confusion in the healthcare industry as to how encompassing a patient's EMR should be, what data should be included and how it is to be designed.

The article focuses on 8-gigabyte per second fibre channels (FC) and its use in some select applications. According to Kyle Fitze, director of SAN marketing at Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co., the key driver for 8-gigabyte per second is virtualization and server consolidation. In 2009, HP expects to release an Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) and other vendors may probably follow. Meanwhile, Facilis Technology Inc. showed an end-to-end 8-gigabyte per second FC storage area network (FC SAN) intended for the high-resolution video industry in April 2009. Also, Brocade Communications Systems Inc. has announced the availability of 8-gigabyte per second FC switches and host bus adapters (HBA).

The article offers a look at the electronic discovery/ediscovery market. The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) was initially conceived by George Socha Jr., founder of Socha Consulting LLC, and Tom Gelbmann, managing director of Gelbmann & Associates. The EDRM divides the ediscovery process into six areas, they include information management, identification, preservation/collection, processing/review/analysis, production and presentation. The reference model also identifies the functions associated with each area. The areas of ediscovery that involves storage the most are mentioned.

The article details the plan of the information technology (IT) group of the baseball team, New York Mets to extend its wireless network to accommodate the hundreds of extra reports who would cover the post-season games. Since the team found itself suffering from a cumbersome, error-prone and labor intensive backup process, it decided to consider disk-to-disk (D2D) or disk-to-tape (D2T) alternatives to tape backup. According to Joseph Milone, senior director of information systems and technology at Sterling American Property Inc., an affiliate of sterling Equities which is the parent company of the New York Mets, with low-cost disk, virtual tape and new technologies like duplication, he could streamline Mets' backup requirements.

The article contends that the Internet Protocol (IP) video technology will be the next phase for the digital video surveillance industry. According to industry researcher Frost & Sullivan, the most important advantage in an IP surveillance network is the capability of storing large volume of video footage in a relatively limited storage space with much higher image quality than analog networks. The IP video surveillance storage market is projected to reach $1.7 billion in revenue in 2008 and top $2.9 billion by 2013, according to Frost. IP video survellance can implement shared, scalable network storage instead of being limited to the storage typically attached to each digital video recorder.

The article details the information technology (IT) infrastructure of Clemson University in South Carolina. According to James Bottum, Clemson's CIO and vice provost for computing and IT, the university is dead serious about becoming a Top 20 school that it has decided to substantially upgrade its data center by building out a totally new IT infrastructure along the lines of the National Science Foundation's Cyberinfrastructure initiative. The costs of upgrading the university's IT infrastructure is discussed. To deliver the storage, Clemson will develop a storage condominium cluster that is assembled out of blocks of low-cost arrays.

The article cites the five must-have computer storage technologies to be incorporated into data centers in 2008. The LTO-4 tape drive format provides built-in Advanced Encryption Standard, doubles capacity to 800GB and boosts the data transfer rate to 120MB/second. N_Port ID Virtualization addresses the problem of how multiple virtual servers get access to the Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (FC SAN). Deduplication is a process that identifies and removes multiple copies of data that eat up storage capacity and lengthen backup windows.

The article discusses how solid-state disks (SSDs) can make a convincing economical case for some applications requiring very high Input/Output operations Per Second (IOPS). The International Securities Exchange (ISE) has decided to purchase a SSD system based on double data rate (DDR) dynamic random access memory (DRAM) technology. It is stated that the rise of not and (NAND) flash-memory technology promises to make SSD a viable storage in the mainstream corporate information technology (IT) storage environment. The advantages and disadvantages of NAND flash storage are discussed, and the options of SSD technology are identified.

The article discusses the impact of the revisions in the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) compliance rules on the document-retention policies of companies. The revised FRCP make electronically stored information (ESI) as significant in litigation matters as paper-based documents. The revised rules designate ESI as discoverable in a federal legal proceeding. Also, the updated rules state that data should be in the form in which it was created with its meta data. Due to the litigation risk, a retention system that eliminates data as soon as there is no business or regulatory reason to keep it is one of the most important things companies can have.

The article talks about negotiating for storage support contracts and prices. It states that third-party support companies that compete with vendors for storage services contracts are reluctant to discuss discounting for fear of losing their vendor certification. The technical help offered by vendors range from basic telephone support that may include firmware upgrades to comprehensive 24/7 onsite support with a two-hour response time, with prices ranging from free during the warranty period to 30 percent or more of the list price of the storage gear. It suggests applying negotiating pressure by bringing in more vendors and third-party providers.

The article discusses L.L. Bean Incorpated's overhaul of its backup process by moving IBM Tivoli Storage Manager from its mainframe to Linux servers and adding serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) disk. The company's storage backup and restore environment was centered around the Tivoli Storage Manager of IBM running on the mainframe under z/operating system (OS) which was suspected of slowing down the backup. By 2005, there were long restores and not all the data was recovered which led to a three-phase initiative by the company's information technology group to overhaul the entire system. It was proposed to establish an enterprise-wide approach to backup and recovery of all centrally store corporate data which would improve efficiency and produce cost savings.

The article offers several ways to control the increasing storage energy costs facing companies in 2007. Information technology managers have to deal with rising power costs, emerging green regulations, which puts a cost on end-of life disposal of systems, as well as real estate costs. One solution offered is to increase storage utilization. The use of direct current-powered equipment that allows a portion of the heat load to move can reduce heat at the system by 20 to 40%. Rearranging the data center creates better cooling efficiency. Moving data offline by storing data on tape rather than on disks uses less energy. Also companies are starting to provide tools that measure power consumption at the device level to manage energy.

The article offers suggestions on protecting data stored in laptop computers in the U.S. Companies have enough reason to encrypt data on laptop computers. For one, the government is doing it. Through a memorandum, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget ordered government agencies to secure their laptop computers and encrypt their data within 45 days. In California, a legislation is passed mandating state businesses to encrypt their data. To comply with regulations, analysts encourage companies to establish and enforce security policies for laptop computers, synchronize backup and protect data by encryption.

The article presents the five choices of the editors of "Storage" magazine regarding technology developments, product introductions and storage standards most likely to watch in 2007. iSCSI SAN will become more popular because of its low cost and easy implementation. Hardware-based tape encryption will protect lost data tapes. The one terabyte hard disk will debut in 2007. Thin provisioning, making more storage available to users than is actually there, will be more utilized. Virtualization will be employed more to mask the complexities and intricacies of underlying storage devices.

The article discusses the ways of improving the process of storage provisioning to achieve better performance and higher disk utilization. Despite the invention of disk drives, storage provisioning has remained a manual task. It also keeps on getting more difficult to accomplish because of the increasing complexity of enterprise storage systems. Storage provisioning refers to the logically carving up of physical disk space to meet the need for storage capacity and performance. But no single set standards for provisioning exists, so storage managers are left to figure out how to manage storage provisioning. The task will be easier if someone will really take charge of the provisioning.

The article provides information on how Hyperion Solutions Corp. managed its co-existing e-mail applications using Microsoft Exchange. The company started as a Lotus Notes shop, but since it acquired different companies, its e-mail system come to include Microsoft Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000. For some time, Hyperion maintained the coexisting e-mail applications which enabled the different departments to use their preferred platform. And in 2003, the company realized that the coexistence approach has increased its operating costs. Thus, the company's management decided to converge on a single e-mail system, the Microsoft Exchange.

The article focuses on the availability of e-mail services. According to Mark Levitt, program vice president for collaborative computing and the enterprise workplace at IDC, e-mail is as important as the telephone for business communications. Donna Scott, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner Inc. said that options for high-availability email tend to be either server- or storage-based. Included in the options are managed hosting, specialized e-mail appliances, local and remote replication software, continuous data protection, local and remote SAN-based replication, and server clustering.

The article reports on the development of easier-to-use storage area networks for small- to medium-sized businesses. Smaller businesses need to implement networked storage systems for their centralized management and backup initiatives. The adoption of simplified storage area networks allows small businesses to manage scattered storage and backup data on isolated servers. Small businesses must be able to efficiently implement their storage initiatives without causing application downtime. Small businesses struggle with storage area networks because they have less than five terabyte of storage.

The article discusses issues related to information lifecycle management (ILM). The implementations of ILM usually address a specific application like e-mail-related compliance. Initially, ILM was defined as a layered stack of technologies. Some layers have been addressed, such as the ability to set up storage tiers. On the other hand, some layers are only just beginning to be addressed, such as information classification and management (ICM). An emerging set of automated tools is described by ICM that combine search, indexing and data movement.

The article presents information on effective storage security plans and the limitations of encryption. It discusses the high vulnerability of storage infrastructure to attacks because of the gap between known security techniques and their level of implementation. It discusses access control and identity management as the first line of defense.

The article focuses on the competition over speed in the storage networking arena. Analysts see two uses for the greater storage networking speeds including disk-to-disk backup and disk archiving and storage port consolidation. It is not clear if Fibre Channel (FC) or IP/Ethernet will become the storage network of choice. For data center managers intending to pursue faster storage networking connections, the choice of FC or IP/Ethernet involves more than just the raw wire speed. They have to take into consideration their existing investment in storage networking technology, their skill sets and the economics of each.

The article analyzes whether purchasing storage products from multiple vendors can save a company more than purchasing from a single vendor. Some IT managers have sharpened their negotiation skills to get the best price; others play multiple vendors off each other, while still others have opted for building a close relationship with a single vendor willing to bend over backwards for them. In a survey by Gartner Inc., 26% of the respondents deliberately go to multiple vendors to gain a pricing advantage and 5% opted for multiple storage vendors to gain specific functionality. However, the mixed storage environment in more costly. The cost of managing different, often incompatible, storage systems adds to the total cost of ownership.

This article forecasts on technologies that will be in demand for 2006. It was said that small computer systems interface and serial ATA disk technology underwent major upgrades. Virtual tape libraries will attract renewed attention as backup and disaster recovery move to the forefront in the wake of a flurry of devastating natural disasters. Midrange array, an essential storage option for years, will become an even more popular alternative in 2006. Wide area network accelerators, remote vaulting and remote office technologies are expected to gain prominence as organizations look to simplify their storage environments by reining in satellite offices. Email archiving on the other hand, may become the hottest of the hot storage technologies in 2006.

This article highlights a survey regarding the salaries of storage professionals in 2005-2006. The growing respect for the storage function is reflected in the continued gradual shift in the number of organizations with dedicated storage groups as more respondents report working on teams dedicated to storage. Survey respondents had an average salary of $77,545 vs. the $73,829 reported for 2004. In 2006, respondents anticipate salary increases to push the average annual salary to a little more than $80,000. On the other hand, the American Electronics Association reported that the technology sector added 190,000 jobs between January 2004 and June 2005.

This article focuses on disaster recovery (DR) plans of computer storage industry. Based on the survey conducted by TheInfoPro Inc. in 2005, only 55% of the managers surveyed were confident they could recover their open-systems data in an emergency. The rest were only somewhat confident or not confident their DR system would work. Managers cannot be confident in a firm's ability to recover data if the systems have not been tested thoroughly. Obviously, testing costs would seem trivial if the firm could not recover from a disaster in a timely way. Beyond cost is the business disruption caused by DR testing.

This article reports on the introduction of new serial attached small computer systems interface (SCSI) (SAS) products. With the wave of SAS products to be released, some storage vendors are ratcheting up campaigns that promote SAS as the inevitably next step in the evolution of SCSI. For storage managers, the switch to SAS from SCSI can be a transparent transition, which is the approach most are expected to take, or they can also devise strategies on how to deploy some of the features such as dual porting, increased drive density and high disk speeds. On June 22, 2005, Fujitsu unveiled the Supermicro M28E. The product consists of eight 2.5-inch 36 gigabyte or 73 gigabyte Fujitsu drives and a host bus adapter by LSI Logic inside a container provided by Supermicro Computer Inc.

This article focuses on the contributions of storage devices to the business operations of manufacturing companies in the U.S. Regardless of the amount of data, the demands of manufacturing and product development especially in global, widely distributed collaborative product development environment, present unique challenges to corporate information technology managers who are increasingly being asked to oversee these engineering systems. This is because products are now designed by teams of often geographically dispersed designers and developers who share product designs, specifications and requirements across a global network.

This article presents experiences of three companies--Drummond Co. Inc., Overstock.com, and NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals Inc.--in switching to different computer storage vendors. The move from EMC to the storage of Hitachi Data Systems Inc. could have been much more difficult for energy and mining company Drummond Co. Inc., but it used EMC with only one application. To ease the transition, Drummond scheduled the change to coincide with the end of its Symmetrix lease. The key to Drummond's migration was a three-step process to prepare the new storage for production that began the moment the deal was finalized. The first step was defining and allocating the redundant array independent disk groups. The second step was building the actual logical unit numbers. The first step was creating the Fibre Channel Storage Area Network using two Brocade switches. Online merchandise discounters Overstock.com deploys multiple clusters of Dell servers running Linux and an Oracle database. For the company, the trick was moving to the we storage while maintaining its full operations. Having resolved how to move the critical database cluster by cluster, Overstock.com was then comfortable letting EMC direct the rest of the migration and configuration.

This article focuses on the growing trend toward the use of optical storage devices in storage management processes in the U.S. as of June 2005. Two recent developments are pressuring enterprise storage managers to look for the kind of long-term archival storage that optical provides. First, various regulatory mandates are forcing organizations to store more data and more types of data for longer periods, and to ensure that the data hasn't been altered. In addition, the data must be quickly accessible to auditors, regulators and lawyers. The second issue is the increasing recognition of the value of content. Rich media,such as graphics and images, needs to be preserved for the long term, yet remain easily accessible. Until recently, the primary optical storage offering for this market was magneto optical (MO) disk. MO uses a 5.25-inch disk read by a red laser. Picking from there is the blue laser, which is the basis of several optical disk technologies. From an enterprise storage standpoint, the most promising is the Ultra Density Optical (UDO) format. UDO uses a 5.25-inch double-sided disk that packs 15GB per side, or 30GB total.

This article discusses the functions of midrange arrays in data management. Midrange arrays offer a wide choice of features that can fulfill almost every storage need. Because the choices are so varied in the midrange array category, some homework is required to find the right array at the right price for specific storage requirements. Applications will dictate the requirements, but a midrange array can offer the best fit whether an application requires low-cost, high-capacity disk, the ability to mix and match different kinds of disk and Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks (RAID) within an array, replication between monolithic and midrange arrays, to the ability to virtualize other storage arrays. For starters, the type of midrange hardware and software features that best serve a company's storage requirements must be determined. A compelling force behind the deployment of midrange arrays is their ability to support disk drives of almost any type, size or number. Midrange arrays need less cache for two reasons: the input/output of applications running on UNIX and Windows OSes trends to be more random than sequential, which generates more queries to disk. As a result, installing more cache in the midrange system generates only a marginal performance increase because the queries still need to go directly to disk.

This article describes how storage area network (SAN) design tools can make it easier to design or modify a SAN. There are only a couple of SAN design tools that help storage administrators to design and update a SAN overtime. As of February 2005, only two vendors offer SAN design tools: Computer Associates (CA) International Inc. has its BrightStor SAN Designer, while EMC Corp. provides SAN Architect. In addition, Boston-based Onaro Inc. offers SANscreen, a SAN change management tool. SAN Designer is a tool which incorporates a storage knowledgebase that contains product interoperability and compatibility data from all major storage vendors and also includes Visio, a popular graphical diagramming pool. Another component of SAN Designer is its automated discovery engine, which searches the storage network, reports what's connected and automatically documents its findings. EMC takes a different approach with SAN Architect. The tool is currently offered only as a Web-based subscription service, but it may be introduced as a loadable product in 2005. The key component of SAN Architect is its interoperability matrix, which is similar to the knowledgebase of CA. Currenty, SAN Architect lacks automated discovery.

This article offers a look at the self-contained storage area network (SAN) packages being used by small companies in the U.S. as of January 2005. The makers of a variety of small, self-contained SAN products, sometimes called SAN-in-a-box, believe they're delivering the kind of bulletproof, anybody-can-deploy-it SAN. The products differ: some sport Fibre Channel ports, a few are strictly iSCSI, some use Serial Advanced Technology Attachment arrays, while others don't care what kind of disks inhabit the storage array. There's also another class of array products that are not exactly "in a box," but are extremely easy to deploy. What they have in common is a relatively low price tag, easy deployment (sometimes in less than an hour) and the promise that they'll run with almost no attention. Several big-name storage vendors are jumping on the SAN-in-a-box bandwagon. EMC Corp. and Dell Inc. have teamed to offer a SAN starter kit with a QLogic Corp. host bus adapter (HBA) built in. Still missing at this point is the integrated switching and easy-to-use configuration software. Late in October 2004, Hewlett-Packard (HP) joined QLogic to introduce the HP Storage Works MSA 1000 Small Business SAN Starter Kit, which includes a QLogic switch, HBA and SAN software integrated into a Storage Works Modular Smart Array 1000 disk system.

This article presents the results of the second annual storage industry survey conducted by Storage magazine in the U.S. in 2004. Overall, respondents like working in storage. During the year, salaries grew approximately 5 percent over what this year's survey respondents reported for 2003. Still the economic continued to be problematic for IT professionals. In addition to salary, some storage professionals receive bonuses as part of their total compensation package. Almost half of the survey's respondents said they expect to receive an average bonus of $5,000 in 2004, almost $900 more than the 2003 survey respondents. Approximately half of the respondents reported no bonus at all in 2003 and 2004. Respondents in the 2004 survey estimate their bonuses will increase by almost 20 percent in 2005 to $5,445. By industry, the financial services area experienced the largest bonuses, almost $9,000 on average, followed by utilities at $6,650 and IT services with almost $6,000. Stock options are another form of compensation; 17.5 percent of respondents report stock option as part of their compensation package, about the same as 2003. Compared to 2003, the government and non-profit and II services sectors gained the most in 2004 in terms of raises, an almost 6 percent increase. INSET: BEYOND SALARY.

This article anticipates the roll out of 4 gigabytes per second Fiber Channel (4GB/sec FC) products in 2005. According to the author, these products will double the performance of 2 gigabytes per second gear for the same price, although the earliest adopters will probably pay a small premium until the full economies of large-scale chip production kick in. The author reports that the 4GB/sec FC transition is the latest in the inexorable improvement of performance, the FC equivalent of Moore's law. Next up, according to him, is 8GB/sec FC, expected in the 2007 to 2008 timeframe. The author observes that although the buzz about 4GB/sec FC has been spreading for several months, no information technology users have yet had a chance to test the technology, which is still working its way through the storage vendors' engineering laboratories. According to him, when it does arrive, 4GB/sec Fabric Channel's adoption should be a gradual, relatively painless process. He points out that information technology managers may see little need for doubling FC performance as of November 2004, but they should figure it into their plans as they consider refreshing their storage area network technology in the future.

This article discusses various technological innovations for 2005. Emerging technology is risky. The vendors are often startups and the technology is not battle tested. CDP also referred to as continuos data protection are products that track and save information about stored data changes. In the event of a failure of data corruption, the CDP system can return to any point in the past, usually just before the storage failure or data corruption. Some CDP vendors include Mendocino Software, Revivio Inc. and XOsoft Inc. Network-attached storage (NAS) wide area accelerators are gaining traction in the U.S., where they are undergoing extensive testing. NAS accelerators work by effectively taking Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) out of the Wide Area Network picture as far as storage goes. They terminate the TCP/IP connection locally and insert their own protocol, effectively removing TCP/IP error checking and latency. Additionally, the appliance may use techniques such as difference recognition, local read/write, read-ahead capabilities, data streaming and compression to speed the transmission, all of which makes the remote NAS storage perform as if it were on the Local Area Network.

This article addresses the automation issue in storage management. Despite dramatic demos and a wave of automation products from vendors large and small, storage managers are not rushing to automate their storage. To begin with, they are not sure they are ready to trust their storage to application-to-spindle automation. They are also concerned about the difficulties of using these tools and despite the embrace of the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S)by most vendors, the challenge of multivendor interoperability remain daunting. Others question the value of automation. Although EMC Corp. has helped drive the SMI-S standard, even it concedes that the immature standard cannot yet enable extensive multivendor automation of complex storage operations. A major New York investment house uses CreekPath Systems to automatically provision both storage area network and network-attached storage capacity across disk arrays from EMC, IBM, Hitachi Data Systems and others. The workflow component is critical to engendering trust in the automation; it will prevent the system from doing unusual without approval. To drive adoption, most offer free trials in the hope that once managers see automation in action, they will be convinced.

The article highlights the proliferation of secondary storage systems among U.S. companies as of August 2004. By definition, the word secondary suggests some degree of inferiority, but in a storage area network (SAN), secondary storage can bring big savings and smoother operations. Lower cost disks are playing an increasingly important role in the storage architecture. Depending on a company's business environment and the currently installed equipment, secondary storage may just as easily be an older network-attached storage box or a SAN array, basically any storage device that performs at a lower level than what is required for critical applications. For most companies, placing a second class of disk storage between their primary storage and their archival tape library is the first step toward a tiered storage environment. The inexorable growth of corporate data has prompted many storage managers to move data to secondary storage to ease the strain on primary storage systems. The obvious benefit is that the more expensive primary storage is freed up to accommodate the applications requiring that class of storage. Reclaiming disk space that is being used for less-than-critical applications or to hold infrequently accessed data will help delay new disk purchases, or even avoid them altogether. INSET: ISCSI INSPIRES LOW-COST STORAGE NETWORKS.

Storage managers have long realized that TCP/IP worked poorly for storage, especially when replicating large volumes of data. But with the need to support widely distributed operations and under pressure to protect data from disasters, managers had little choice but to suffer TCP/Internet Protocol's (IP) shortcomings when replicating data. Help with overcoming, or at least minimizing, TCP/IP's infamous transmission problems is finally arriving. TCP/IP was not designed to transport large volumes of stored data. The pervasive wide area network protocol has no problem with small amounts of data that can be sliced and diced into tiny packets. However, TCP/IP does not handle congestion well. It does a lot of checking back and forth and resending, which just slows things way down. As a result, when an organization tries to replicate large amounts of data between sites over, such as a TI link (1.5 Mb/s) using TCP/IP the performance can not match what it gets when backing up that same data over the local area network at night. Today storage managers can choose among a growing number of appliance that promise to speed up the movement of large volumes of data over TCP/IP links. These products, network accelerators of various types allow organizations to transmit more data faster and use less bandwidth, which saves money and boosts performance.

The article gives pieces of advice in purchasing computer storage devices in advance and buy software separately from hardware. The increased importance of software in the pricing equation, combined with pricing models and metrics such as price per managed port, make it difficult to ascertain what even constitutes a good price. To negotiate the best storage prices consistently and effectively, it is important to write an enterprise storage plan. The enterprise storage plan also allows the company to use the warranty period to maximum advantage. It is best to acquire and retire storage to coincide with the warranty. The residual vale of a piece of storage at the end of a typical three-year lease is effectively zero. Many companies have procurement rules that require two or three bidders for any significant purchase, including storage. Vendor lock-in undermines negotiating leverage. With hardware becoming increasingly commoditized, vendors are turning to their software not only for lock-in, but to provide the fat profit margins no loner available from hardware. Ideally, storage managers wants to itemize the proposal of the vendors and negotiate the hardware and software separately. INSET: CHECKLIST FOR BETTER STORAGE PURCHASING.

The article focuses on the benefits of using network-attached storage to consolidate file servers. The key to making network-attached storage a major component in enterprise storage is storage management. When storage resource management products start reporting on network-attached storage, it will finally be able to control it. Although a few network-attached storage vendors have long provided storage resource management capabilities for its own products, multivendor network-attached storage management has not been practical. The release of Windows Storage Server 2003 from Microsoft gave added boost to the network-attached storage market. It is optimized for file and print serving and packed with a variety of storage goodies such as volume shadow copy services , distributed file services and file replication services. Originally, network attached storage products were primarily appliances that combined hardware, the filer operating system and storage arrays in a single box. Network attached storage heads can be used as gateways to a consolidated storage are network that provides both file-level and block-level storage. Most companies are not taking advantage of all the capabilities vendors are packing into their network attached storage products, although the best products in the market can almost match storage area network technology in features and capabilities. INSETS: ARMY RESERVE CONSOLIDATES ITS STORAGE;NAS management on the move;WINDOWS STORAGE SERVER 2003 AND BEYOND: WINFS;Next-generation NAS

Provides information on technologies that will lower the price of networked storage, giving small and medium enterprises (SME) a chance to try out advanced storage strategies. Storage area network (SAN)/network-attached storage (NAS) gateways that allow NAS/SAN integration; iSCSI that gives the foundation for Internet Protocol-based storage; SATA that enables organizations to capitalize on inexpensive disk capacity; Storage resource management (SRM) that introduces a new generation of storage management capabilities. INSET: Storage management standards.

Discusses the results of a survey of storage professionals in the U.S. conducted in October 2003 by the staff of "Storage" magazine on the increase of salaries for employees working in the computer storage industry. Methodology; Comparison of average annual salaries in 2002 and 2003; Factors that affect the variation of salaries; Expected increase in salaries in 2004.

Focuses on the popularity of the Linux open-source operating system as an enterprise storage solution. Lower costs and flexibility offered by Linux, according to senior analyst Mike Karp; Problem of limited tool selection for Linux storage facing enterprise storage managers; Use of Linux storage for the Web site Tarot.com, which provides online divination, readings and astrology. INSETS: LINUX STARS ON THE MAINFRAME;BRINGING SANS TO SUPERCOMPUTING.

Focuses on the issue of consolidating the storage area network (SAN) architecture of business enterprises. Problem with SAN island; Case of multiple SAN; Factors to consider in SAN deployment. INSETS: THE ULTIMATE BENEFIT OF CONSOLIDATION;ISL HEAVEN OR HELL?.

Focuses on the growing interest in using Internet Protocol (IP) for storage in small to midsized enterprises. Appeal of iSCSI to large companies with remote sites; Information on the iSCSI storage array being offered by IBM; Advantages and disadvantages of IP and Fibre Channel. INSET: IP STORAGE STANDARDS.