Storage Survey Has Negative Findings
It may seem hard to believe, but a recent survey from DataCore Software found that most medium and large enterprises overlook storage when they implement their virtual operating environments. In fact, 43 percent of survey respondents said they had not estimated how storage would impact their server and desktop virtualization costs, and had not begun a virtualization project because the storage costs seemed "too high."
This report comes out at a time when efforts to rein in storage costs have taken on the tenor of a crusade, as a wide variety of vendors are unveiling new storage products and techniques designed to reduce storage burdens.
Survey results were also bad for respondents who have implemented server virtualization, as 66 percent blamed a big hike in storage costs as their "biggest problem." Almost 40 percent reported that their storage infrastructures are bogging down application performance or hindering its availability, while another 20 percent said it has become harder to maintain business continuity.
"Nearly one in four (22 percent) of IT administrators admitted that they feel 'locked-in' to their storage hardware provider," DataCore said. "One third of these respondents underestimated the costs that server/desktop virtualization would have on their storage budgets. Accordingly, 41 percent of the overall respondents are saddled with two or more different storage systems from the same vendor, and more than 60 percent cannot manage their storage resources as a single pool."
Other findings:
- 73 percent of organizations have yet to begin taking advantage of cloud services for storage needs.
- In what looks like a multiplier effect, 95 percent said they are likely to implement server/desktop virtualization software from VMware, Microsoft or Citrix -- the vaunted Big Three -- in the coming year.
On a more optimistic note, 48 percent reported they are using storage virtualization software to overcome the storage-related obstacles "associated with their server and desktop virtualization initiatives."
[Editor's note: Corrected grammatical error in second bulleted item on 4/6.]
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 04/05/2011 at 12:48 PM