Anthony Ricigliano - Adequate Storage is Essential

In an age of data explosion, adequate storage is essential. However, finding the right balance between reliability, cost, and performance is difficult. As technology continues to evolve, trends in storage media are moving from localized storage units to distributed arrays that better support disaster-recovery plans. Let’s take a look at how fibre channel SAN compares to tier one storage:

Fibre Channel SAN

With a fibre channel SAN, space and distance is no longer a restriction. By utilizing IP protocols, the various storage devices that make up the SAN, or storage area network, can now be distributed over long distances to take advantage of remote data centers and even facilitate disaster recovery efforts. Additional benefits include simplified storage administration, increased flexibility with minimal needs for recalling shifting storage resources from one bank of servers to another and the ability to boot a faulty server from information stored on the SAN.

Anthony Ricigliano Tier One Storage

Based on the criticality of the data and the required uptime, computer centers rate their storage from tier one to tier four. While tier four is mission-critical information with the highest level of uptime and often requires redundant storage devices to protect the enterprise from hardware failures, tier one storage is much simpler. Most companies continue to expect that tier one data can be accessed the majority of the time, and operations won’t grind to a halt if they have to make do without it for a short period of time.

Fibre Channel SAN vs. Tier One Storage

When comparing these two types of storage methods, fibre channel San is generally more expensive, more reliable, and higher performing than tier one storage, However, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better. For each project, the organization’s needs and goals should be carefully evaluated before deciding whether to implement a new system using fibre channel SAN or tier one storage based on the following criteria:

• Is this a mission-critical task?
• What are the availability requirements?
• What is the cost of an unscheduled outage?
• What level of performance is required?
• Is there an effective and efficient work-around in the event of an outage?

Anthony Ricigliano The Current IT Reality

With the current state of the economy, IT budgets are tight and many companies are making do with what they have. For some shops, this situation creates a conflict of interest in that only mission-critical projects are being pursued, but there is little to no room in most budgets for new hardware. This can mean that systems requiring maximum uptime with a high level of risk in the event of data loss are being implemented on tier one storage units at this time. This can lead to higher maintenance costs, frustration for users and business partners, and even the loss of important information.

The Next Wave

We’ve all marveled at how far flash drives have came in a relatively short period of time. Not so long ago, we were amazed by the ability to store gigabytes of data on a thumb drive. Now, this technology has evolved into terabyte hard drives, and Apple has started including solid-state memory in many Macbooks. The next step for this reliable storage media is the banks of tier one storage devices. These new devices are expected to be faster, cheaper, and more reliable than even the best fibre channel SAN units.

Although fibre channel SAN storage provides a higher level of reliability and performance, it does so at a substantially-higher cost. Depending on the system requirements, tier one storage can be just as effective while lowering the overall implementation costs. Of course, both of these technologies will ultimately be replaced with something newer, better, and cheaper.