Meeting the demand for data storage

Data storage has become one of the fastest-growing parts of the IT budget, thanks to enterprise-wide transactional systems, massive data warehouses, and explosive growth in e-mail traffic. If storage costs continue their rapid rise, they could make it harder for companies to store and exploit new forms of data.
Companies often store many more copies of data than they need, partly out of concerns about losing information and partly because of poor planning. In most cases, they could meet legal, regulatory, and strategic needs with simpler storage configurations.
IT executives should develop better policies for managing storage and for communicating more effectively to their internal clients the trade-offs of cost, reliability, accessibility, and risk. Developing a menu of storage options, each with a clear cost attached, can help IT executives work with the business to develop a more efficient storage organization.

Exhibit 1: Demand for data storage has grown by 53 percent or more every year even though the unit cost of storage has dropped.
Exhibit 2: Decisions about data storage are often made by divisions, with little consistency across the organization.
Exhibit 3: Adopting a process based on product development can help IT departments create a menu of storage solutions.
Exhibit 4: A menu of options lets internal customers assess costs and other trade-offs.
Exhibit 5: Line-by-line transparency allows internal customers to understand what is offered at different service levels.

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