Midsize Business IT Initiatives: Is Storage a Priority? 14 April 2003 Back To Small & Midsize Business Focus Area

	Midsize businesses continue to identify operational efficiency — led by the perceived need to reduce costs — as the leading source of pressure driving their company to invest in IT (see Figure 1) . Gartner clients continue to identify projects focused on the optimization and integration of existing infrastructure investments in 2003. What does this mean for storage? Much as in the networking and security space, the challenges many midsize businesses will face is that their staff and budgets will not keep pace with the demands of an ever-growing storage infrastructure. Never before has there been so much viable competition in the midmarket among storage vendors. Dell lowered the bar with its reseller relationship with EMC, by driving costs down and making storage more affordable to small and midsize businesses (SMBs). IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems — to mention a few — have all introduced storage products targeting SMBs. Gartner has observed a trend on the part of midsize businesses that buy storage equipment from the same vendor that sold them their servers. When asked who they considered when making a storage purchase, midsize businesses at the Spring 2003 Midsize Enterprise Summit identified IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Dell — the same vendors that have the lion's share of the server business among midsize businesses. The only nonserver vendors to make the list were EMC and Network Appliance. Storage vendors need to understand storage architectures and preferred buying behaviors of midsize businesses before developing their go-to-market strategies (see "Midsize Business Storage Infrastructures: Room For Change"). Service and customer support rate highly in storage product selection, as do reliability of the storage vendor and ease of doing business with the vendor. These selection criteria are in line with their requirements for other hardware and infrastructure purchases. But cost savings will not be the only driver for increased storage requirements. More content and data are becoming digital and require file serving and storing capability. Faster networks will promote more use of networked storage (see "NAS vs. SAN: Technology Overview"). Enhancements and integration to front-office and back-office applications will drive demand for storage capacity and data manageability. Business continuity and regulatory requirements will influence storage architectures and operational procedures. Midsize business IT departments will be tasked with proving that investments in new storage products and services will support the growing needs of the business (see "Justifying Disk Storage Networking"). Most midsize businesses say less than 10 percent of their IT staff have storage management responsibilities, so it seems storage services would be a natural fit for these companies. But, as has been the case with other managed services, midsize businesses balk at the suggestion of third parties managing part of their infrastructures (see "Midsize Businesses Slowly Warm Up to Storage Services").		James A. Browning Editor in Chief Small and Midsize Business

	Midsize Business Storage Infrastructures: Room for Change 11 April 2003 James A. Browning  Roger W. Cox  Storage vendors are introducing affordable new midrange storage products. With storage needs and technology changing rapidly, midsize businesses will be challenged to find the right vendor to supply the right solution.		NAS vs. SAN: Technology Overview 13 November 2002 April Adams  Marshall Breeding  Nick Allen  Pushan Rinnen  Both network-attached storage and storage area networks have gained momentum in the last few years. But what are they, really? How do they differ? And will the models converge in the future?
	Justifying Disk Storage Networking 20 January 2003 Robert Passmore  When the data for a full return-on-investment analysis is not available, a piecewise approach that analyzes capacity purchases and improved management productivity can provide justification for storage-networking projects.		Midsize Businesses Slowly Warm Up to Storage Services 11 April 2003 Adam W. Couture  A recent study reveals only lukewarm demand for new storage services among midsize businesses. Assessment tools and peer references will help customers understand their internal storage total cost of ownership.