The Continuing Evolution of SAN-Based Storage Infrastructures

1
The Continuing Evolution of SAN-Based Storage
Infrastructures

• Dave Russell
• Research Vice President
• Storage Technologies Strategies

2
The Challenge Storage Is Consuming More of the
IT Budget
Storage H/W Spending Growth Storage S/W Spending
Growth IT Budget Growth
7.7
7.4
2.5
2007
2012
3
SAN Infrastructure Technology Overview
Benefits of SAN-Based Storage

• Increased storage asset utilization
• Broader host server connectivity

• Centralized storage management
• Better TCO

4
10-Gigabit Ethernet Expands iSCSI Breadth of
Deployment
November 2007 Gartner Data Center Conference
Polling Survey Results

• What is the likelihood that you will install an
  iSCSI SAN in the next 12 months?
• 28 Very likely
• 20 Likely
• 52 Not likely

• 19 said that 10Gbps Ethernet will affect their
  storage infrastructure over the next three years

• What is the likelihood that you will replace your
  Fibre Channel SAN with 10Gbps Ethernet?
• 7 Very likely
• 19 Likely
• 74 Not likely

5
Boot From SAN Reducing Storage Requirements,
Improving Change Control
High-Availability Disk Array
15K rpm HDDs

• Rapid Server Recovery
• Rapid Server Deployment
• Streamline Administration
• Reduced Acquisition Costs
• Reduced Power Consumption
• Reduced Cooling Consumption
• Improved Reliability/Availability

10K rpm HDDs
7.2K rpm HDDs
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Thin Provisioning Automating Storage Capacity
Management, Improving Utilization
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Quality of Storage Service via Automated Tiered
Disk Storage

• Reduced storage
• hardware costs

• High-performance
• Low-capacity disk drives

• Less power, heat
• and space

• Medium-performance
• Medium-capacity
• disk drives

• Server and application
• agnostic

• Low-performance
• High-capacity
• disk drives

• Optimized price/
• performance

• Simplifies
• management

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Recommendations

• Automate storage management to gain agility and
  flexibility
• Implement an iSCSI-based SAN on a dedicated
  Ethernet infrastructure
• In an FC SAN environment, standardize
  infrastructure components to reduce
  interoperability issues
• Buy an integrated and tested solution from an
  experienced source
• Don't try to do it all at once!