11
storage to that system. Another area where such that outside of the really big
Perhaps two, three or even solutions may be considered data centres, storage skills
ANAL
ten times as much physical are projects where there are tend to be less prevalent..
storage may be allocated as is major budget limitations at There is a need for the
YSIS INDUSTR
actually required to support start up but where the storage vendor and partner
the system at go live. This pressure may ease over time. community to put much more
approach may lead to the Needless to say, thin effort into educating potential
system holding a large chunk provisioning is not suitable in customer of the benefits of
of disk space that is not going all systems as there may well the latest, and more
to be used in the near term, be technical restrictions that sophisticated storage
and may never be utilised inhibit its deployment. systems, rather than relying
productively at all. Beyond this observation, on everyone working these
another barrier to adoption out for themselves.
One way of thinking about involves procedural, not
thin provisioning is to picture technical, issues. After all, we know that IT
Y
it as a “just-in-time” storage professionals are under
solution that grows allocated The challenge to address greater pressure than ever to
disk space as demand concerns the way in which keep services available and
increases, so that storage is most organisations allocate have very little time available
bought and made available to their storage budgets today. to investigate new
the application or user as and technologies.
when the need arises. Thus, In most companies the
it is clear to see that the majority of IT expenditure is Ultimately, the answer to our
primary attraction of thin project centric.. Although talk question about the
provisioning is concerned is rife in the industry about desirability of the latest
with avoiding spending the benefits of moving ‘from developments can be
capital until the business capex to opex’ models, when answered with another
requirement so to do arises. it comes to IT sourcing and fashion analogy: it’s one thing
investment, the simple fact is to get your new line onto the
The idea that storage can be that most businesses are not catwalk, but unless there is
purchased only when needed well positioned to consider serious effort made in
is very appealing particularly making wholesale changes to translating its unique features
in the current economic their existing processes. and benefits to the real world,
climate. Hence, although perhaps it will only be worn by the
paradoxical, the current chosen few, not the
So where might thin economic climate is actually a mainstream market. So it is
provisioning appeal? There rate limiting factor preventing with the latest features in the
are a number of scenarios, this approach to storage storage arena.
including where a pool of strategy from becoming more
storage can be shared mainstream. Research shows the need is
amongst multiple there, but also that education
applications. In addition, as And what of that other, rather and the procedural wherewith
well as delaying capital popular industry topic of the all is perhaps lacking in many
expenditure, the thin last few years, virtualisation? places. As with many areas of
provisioning approach may We found that understanding the IT industry, the hurdles to
also enable advantages to be of the rationale for overcome are rarely purely
garnered from the saving of adopting storage technical but need to embrace
electricity by not running virtualisation solutions lags the procedural and cultural
spinning disks that are not someway behind the case for aspects.
used and from the collateral server virtualisation. Partly,
saving in cooling costs. this is explained by the fact www.freeformdynamics.com
WWW.SNS-UK.CO.UK SEPT 09
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