Complexity

By Greg McNevin

August 14, 2007: Storage software developer MonoSphere has released the findings of a new survey into thin provisioning, with risk and complexity topping the list of concerns for storage professionals.

While the company found that 75 percent of the 249 storage professionals surveyed cited increased utilisation of storage hardware as the top expected benefit of thin provisioning, it also found that 77 percent indicated that the increased risk of running out of storage coupled with the added management complexity are major obstacles hampering initial or further deployment of thin technology.

When it comes to risk, the survey found that the possibility of suddenly running out of storage space in a data centre where several clients can share the same storage server pool. MonoSphere claims this can lead to disastrous situations where multiple applications and end users are unable to save data.

The survey found that 44 percent of respondents cited increased risk of running out of storage a concern with thin provisioning, and a further 43 percent added that complexity to the storage environment was also a concern. Finally, 42 percent claimed that a lack of thin provisioning management tools remain a concern.

“Since application owners generally ask for more storage capacity than what they really need, expensive IT assets are vastly underutilised,” said Bob Laliberte, an analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group. “Implementing thin provisioning managed by a storage capacity management solution creates an environment where corporations can safely and effectively raise storage utilisation and reduce capital spending.”

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