Insider Advice for Adding Enterprise Storage

There are four main reasons why companies add new storage, according to Fujitsu America storage product marketing manager Jim DeCaires -- capacity, a technology update, performance, and availability. Reagrdless of the reason, however, doing it the wrong way can cause a wide range of problems.

And there's always a right way and a wrong way to do it.

"There are key questions that need to be answered for each of the four reasons for considering additional storage," DeCaires says. "If you do it wrong, you end up with the sprawl of storage islands, over-provisioning, etc."

DeCaires recommends preceding any storage expansion with a full audit of current capacity utilization, in order to point up areas of under-utilization -- and, potentially, to reduce or even eliminate the need for the expansion you're considering.

"Companies must understand the utilization of their existing capacity potential," DeCaires says. "If it's possible to consolidate existing storage to capture unused capacity, do so."

It's also key to understand the performance profile of all applications, both existing and anticipated, so that storage can be allocated to accommodate peak loads as needed. The motto, according to DeCaires? Know your performance bottlenecks before you go.

Those bottlenecks can have different demands; sometimes they might require the addition of software or hardware, and sometimes they might just require a small adjustment to various settings.

The point is that additional storage alone is not always the answer, so it's best to explore all options before requesting an expensive investment that might not make any real changes to the user experience.

Similarly, in terms of availability, DeCaires says it's best to be sure you have a full understanding of service level agreements (SLAs).

"Availability requirements are driven by business SLA demands," he says. "Do you understand your outages, and have you targeted the correct issues for resolution? Understand the MBTF [mean time between failures] and MTBUI [mean time between unscheduled interruptions] of your environment."

A need for technology updates is easier to perceive - if performance is suffering due to outdated tech, update it - but at the same time, of course, getting the latest software and hardware just because it's new isn't the answer, either.

Updating to new technology, DeCaires says, requires patient and commitment - and for mission-critical applications, it's particularly crucial to go through plenty of testing in advance.

Similarly, DeCaires adds, make sure that you've got an exist plan in place prior to making any major purchase. If it seems overwhelming to implement an exit plan, there's a lesson in that, too: it's probably not worth going there in the first place.

This article originally appeared on Internet.com's Datamation Web site.