Storage Strategy: Why You Need One, and What it Should Include

Analysis

IT managers involved in storage decisions face unprecedented pressures, including:

Tightened budgets. Cost optimization has been the primary goal this year, and this is unlikely to change significantly in 2010.
Soaring amounts of data. Data storage demand is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35% to 65% during the next five years.
Compliance and governance issues. Laws are becoming more and more complex, and they vary by region.
Rapid storage technological change. A plethora of new technology and services is available to store, back up and archive data.
Rapid and broader IT change. Mobility, server virtualization and cloud are three major forces that are changing the way storage is managed.
Greater demands from the business. Business units are requiring accelerated deployment of applications and greater leverage of existing solutions.

All of these issues point to the need for a comprehensive data storage strategy, implemented by a dedicated storage team within IT. This collection of research outlines how to prepare, develop and execute such a strategy in an efficient, cost-effective way. Clients are well-advised to digest this research sequentially, in the order provided below.

"Key Elements of a Successful Storage Strategy" outlines the many important components that comprise an effective storage plan. Gartner discusses these steps, starting with the establishment of a dedicated storage team. We also emphasize the need to clearly differentiate the strategic from the tactical, and the importance of having in place a clear vendor selection and retention process. These elements can make the difference between a highly successful strategy and an ineffective or incomplete one. We offer actionable advice about how to execute the directives outlined in each element.

With a strategy in place, it's important for IT leadership to work closely with the storage team. Our client inquiries indicate that many IT organizations tend to react to storage issues, rather than take the initiative to develop a storage strategy that is in line with organizational goals. This tendency leads organizations to maintain a set of tactical products, vendors and solutions that may only serve short-term goals. This can skew the organization's orientation and can compromise the storage infrastructure to accommodate technologies that are not part of the strategic plan. Gartner advises IT leadership to work with the storage team, maintaining a relationship to monitor the status and initiatives. IT leadership should also ask key questions that probe the depth and breadth of the implementation of the storage strategy and the engagement of the team.

"Strategic Questions IT Should Ask the Storage Team" lays out the key issues that the IT management team, business owners and storage team should explore together. Questions include: "What is the team doing about insourcing and outsourcing, and how is it handling storage service models?" and "Is the team documenting key agreements?" Gartner explains the reasons why each question is important, and details the implications of various responses.

"Creating an Effective Data Management Strategy for Aging Data" is a key component of a storage strategy. In this research, Gartner discusses how a storage strategy must include effective data management, especially for aging data. Key issues include risk management, which takes into account government compliance and industry regulations and policies, user requirements, which demand more intelligent search, access capabilities and technological areas where, despite the many advances and options, challenges remain. Data management is a precursor to any storage strategy, but the organization and IT stakeholders must understand its data before they can begin to manage it.

"Best Practices for Turning a Storage Strategy Into Tactical Actions" explains the execution of the storage strategy at the granular level. For example, Gartner encourages storage teams to take a top-down approach, allowing business needs to drive the strategy, which is then translated by the IT department into tactical solutions; we explain in detail how to do this and why it is important. Storage teams can use this and the other approaches outlined in this analysis to ensure that tactical solutions are aligned with the storage strategy, as well as the organization's goals.

"Advantages and Disadvantages of Storage Insourcing vs. Outsourcing" must be considered as part of any storage strategy. This research explains the advantages and disadvantages of each. It describes the four phases of a storage sourcing strategy, and explains how to choose between insourcing and outsourcing.

Advice about tactical storage issues also characterizes "Toolkit: Create a Strategy for IT Service Data Availability and Protection." This research targets all levels of management that deal with data recovery and protection, providing guidance for developing a comprehensive tier-based data availability and protection strategy. It includes a customizable tool that allows IT professionals to communicate the pros and cons of alternative technology solutions at each of the tiers. The Toolkit also outlines trends that drive change in enterprise disaster recovery management (DRM) availability and protection strategies, and discusses the technologies that are critical to data protection and replication architectures. Gartner weighs risks against cost-optimization trade-offs, and presents a series of granular, step-by-step action items that managers can implement to achieve a comprehensive recovery, availability and data protection strategy. The Toolkit can be used for the edification of IT leadership, who can, in turn, enlighten storage decision makers about the issues involved with implementing such a strategy.

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