Survey Says: Unstructured Data Fuels Storage Growth

By Greg McNevin

February 9, 2009: According to a new study of key Information Technology (IT) decision makers by content addressable storage (CAS) and information lifecycle management (ILM) specialist Tarmin Technologies, while budgets are decreasing storage needs are predictably growing, with unstructured data being the number one driver for capacity increases.

Conducted in Q4 of 2008, the poll of storage and IT managers included 100 respondents from the UK, Italy, Germany, Ireland and other European countries, with 78 percent of the respondents from large or medium-sized enterprises.

Unsurprisingly, 66 percent of respondents indicated that they see their 2009 budgets as flat to declining, while at the same time storage capacity needs will continue to increase. 73 percent reported that these needs will grow at a minimum of 30 percent per year, while 17 percent expect capacity requirements to rise by at least 50 percent per year.

Tarmin rightfully points out that the figures show 2009 will require maximisation of existing storage resources as well as other strategies to minimise the purchase of new capacity, particularly considering 48 percent of respondents said that storage makes up over 20 percent of their total IT budget.

The survey also showed that 59 percent of those canvassed see unstructured data as the number one cause of capacity growth and 55 percent reported primary storage as their largest area of capacity expansion.

Encouragingly, 68 percent of those surveyed also claimed to be developing an official Green IT strategy, while 94 percent consider Green IT to either be directly linked to cost savings or both cost savings and an environmentally friendly strategy.

“Despite today’s economic turbulence, storage capacity continues to grow exponentially,” said Eric Herzog, vice president of marketing and sales at Tarmin. “This study shows that solutions that reduce storage capital and operational expenditure, such as [Tarmin’s] GridBank, meet the needs of both the budget holders and IT managers.”

“Products that combine a number of technologies such as active archival, ILM, and policy-based storage automation, make any company’s storage operations much more cost effective, efficient, and environmentally responsible and will see substantially increased demand throughout 2009 and into 2010,” added Herzog.

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