31 July 2010
Saturday
How to purchase a tiered storage tool
By Allan Tan | Mar 19, 2009
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PrintWith storage needs spiraling upward, it's impractical to keep every piece of corporate data on expensive, high-performance Fibre Channel disks. The practice of tiered storage reduces this expense by keeping mission-critical data on the fastest disk platforms, while relegating less valuable data to slower and less-expensive storage such as SATA disk or even tape.
Most organizations will establish several storage tiers. But organizing corporate data into storage tiers is hardly a straightforward process. First, a storage administrator must classify data to @38800 understand the relative value of each file or file type. Data types that are infrequently accessed, such as email, are often indexed and stored with automated archiving tools. Data then has to be migrated between storage platforms so it can be stored according to its classification.
Each chapter in this Buying Guide lists a set of purchasing criteria for a specific product area, as well as product specifications, to help readers identify prospective tiered storage products. Before we look at specific product categories, let's identify the general core concerns.
Establish data retention policies up-front. Data retention is a part of tiered storage. Most organizations are obligated to retain certain data types in order to meet compliance and litigation needs, and then delete that data once its retention period expires.
But retention policies are not set automatically -- no software can tell you how long you should keep a piece of data. To define a retention period, you must know the value of each data type and its relationship to compliance. You can then use data migration and archiving tools to enforce the retention policies across your storage tiers.
Formulate a data categorization plan in advance. Data classification is not automatic. No software can determine the actual value of data to your organization, so don't rely on data classification tools to make important classification decisions. The data classification process involves input from managers in other departments such as HR, finance and legal. Once you've established the relative value of each data type, then data classification tools can then find the data, apply metadata and enforce established retention policies. Note: The most successful tiered storage deployments occur when categorization and retention policies are already proven.
