Gartner Says Unmanaged Storage Has Hidden Costs That Can Be Avoided With Storage Management
New Product by Gartner Measurement, TCO Manager for Enterprise Storage Management, Shows That Many Data Centers Are Spending Too Much
STAMFORD, CONN., June 9, 2003 — Unmanaged storage is easier and less expensive to acquire and install, but evaluating the total cost of ownership (TCO) shows that hidden costs actually make unmanaged storage more expensive, according to Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT and ITB).
"Many people believe that direct-attached storage is less expensive to add than fabric-attached storage technologies such as storage-area networks," said Craig Stanley, research director for Gartner Measurement. "However, support and management of direct-attached storage eventually reaches a point where aspects of the storage TCO begin to drive unit costs higher than other storage topologies."
With the average data center doubling its storage every 18 to 24 months, enterprises with more than 5 terabytes (TB) of usable storage (6 TB to 10 TB installed) should evaluate the cost benefits that a storage-area network (SAN) approach could provide in managing the TCO, according to Gartner Measurement.
Recent data from a new Gartner Measurement product, TCO Manager for Enterprise Storage Management, confirms that enterprises exceeding 12 TB of usable storage through 2004 will find greater storage TCO per gigabyte from the implementation of SAN technologies.
According to the TCO Manager for Enterprise Storage Management product data, the total costs for direct-attached storage (DAS) and shared DAS (SDAS) initially are less expensive than SAN for a certain level of storage capacity. As storage quantity increases, the total cost per gigabyte for all three storage types decreases, with DAS and SDAS decreasing at a faster rate than SAN storage. However, this situation holds true only to a certain level of storage capacity.
"At some point, support costs begin to increase rapidly, causing the TCO costs to rise on a per-gigabyte basis," said Stanley. "The increases are caused primarily by storage activities, such as provisioning, backup and recovery, and media management implemented for multiple, diverse instances, that grow along a continually accelerating curve rather than linearly. SAN total costs initially are higher than DAS and SDAS storage costs, but the SAN costs steadily decline as the online storage capacity increases."
Today, the breakeven point between the storage technologies is about 11.5 TB, according to Gartner Measurement. At that point, the marginal increases in available storage yield higher TCO costs for DAS and SDAS technologies while the TCO costs for SAN storage continue to decline.
Understanding the composition and drivers of storage costs is becoming critical for enterprises endeavoring to maintain control over costs. The TCO Manager for Enterprise Storage Management product enables enterprises to estimate the financial implications of current and proposed storage solutions. The TCO Manager for Enterprise Storage Management product provides insight into costs and staffing requirements by storage topology, gives peer comparison of results, and features a robust storage forecasting, simulation and ROI tool. For more information, please contact Craig Stanley, Gartner research director, at 251-625-4590, or Angie Reynolds, Gartner research analyst, at 310-301-9817.
Gartner will be giving demonstrations of the TCO Manager for Enterprise Storage Management product at the Gartner PlanetStorage 2003 conference, June 9-12, at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. For more information or to register for the conference, please visit www.gartner.com/2_events/conferences/2003/str19/str19.jsp
Built from the largest and most robust peer database in the world, Gartner Measurement's Rapid Assessments, Decision Tools and Performance Management programs provide the consistent, repeatable, and robust methodology and approach enterprises need today to measure their effectiveness and improve their performance.
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