Managing the storage explosion

Overview

Forget about megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes. When it comes to our insatiable thirst for storage, IT staff these days tend to talk in petabytes (that's 1,000 terabytes to you and me) and work their way upwards. And not just in large enterprises either. Indeed, if it is not already, storage is fast becoming the number one issue across organisations of all sizes as they grapple with exponential data growth.

The problem, however, is not just one of capacity - if that was all it would be relatively easy to handle. The length of time data needs to be stored is rising too, mostly to comply with ever more onerous legislation. Added to which the sheer volume of information involved is exposing weaknesses when it comes to data security, backup and archiving - weaknesses that are hard to address with conventional storage management solutions.