The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.
January - 2011 - issue > Technology
Enterprise Level SAN Features and Solutions at SMB Prices
Tad Lebeck
Two underlying factors have changed the storage landscape and have made SANs more important and accessible to SMBs. The first is the recent explosion of digital data, and the second is the increasing availability of entry-level, feature-packed SANs that are specially priced and designed for SMBs.
Managing storage in an age of data explosion
According to research firm IDC, the amount of digital information created, captured, or replicated in 2010 will amount to 1.2 zettabytes (1.2 trillion gigabytes). By 2020, IDC estimates this will balloon to 35 zettabytes or, in other words, 35 trillion gigabytes.
As a result of this massive growth in data, SMBs will face a number of challenges in the coming years as they try to deal with the increasing flow of information.
First, SMBs do not necessarily have standardized data storage, backup, recovery, or archiving methods. This is due in part to cost constraints, and due in part to existing behavioral norms. While there is more digital content to handle now more than ever, resources at SMBs have stayed at the same levels. With limited resources, many SMBs are forced to be very cost-conscious and might not even have someone on staff dedicated to IT backup. Additionally, IT staff at SMBs may not be able to keep up with the increasing flow of data.
|
|
