StorageWorks 2006 Day Two

February 22, 2006: Day one was all about consolidation, and while this theme continues on day two, today it has a bent on information lifecycle management (ILM).

Vice president of HP Storage Software Frank Harbist got the day rolling by highlighting just how ILM fits in HP’s vision of an end to end solution. Harbist says that an organisation’s information is arguably one of its two most valuable assets, the other being its people.

ILM is, in HP’s mind, as much a part of storage as the hardware. The company sees operational and archived data, traditionally two very different things managed in different ways and in different places, converging into one seamless source of secure and accessible information.

It also sees the line between storage management and ILM blurring until they are both part of the same process in the not too distant future. Quite an ambition considering it is still not widely understood exactly what ILM is.

“ILM as a concept is still not clearly understood.” says Graeme Penn, associate vice president of Storage Asia Pacific for IDC. “Two thirds of organisations do not have scheduled updated information taxonomies, and 35% have no knowledge about what regulatory compliance affects their enterprise.”

IDC says that many companies are still in the planning and deployment stage of effective SAN environments and have yet to grasp the value, or even the need for ILM

“Understanding the value of the information in your organisation is the key to embracing ILM.” says Penn. And once this value is recognised, a networked storage system that can grow and adapt as your ILM needs evolve becomes the blocks your companies future is built upon.

HP StorageWorks 2006 concludes today, keep checking back for our round up and don’t miss our upcoming issue for a full rundown of the event.

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