How to buy storage
01 January 2006, 12:00am

This webinar has now been archived please click on the links below to access the webinar.

Storage has traditionally been acquired to support the capacity requirements of specific applications and servers, an approach that has encouraged companies to buy more than they need, but at the cheapest possible price.

Today, storage is starting to be treated as a generic resource, shared among different applications and servers that may have different performance requirements. Buying capacity in bulk at the lowest price is no longer an effective strategy.

To get the best value from their storage investment, organisations must first consider a number of questions:

• Who – is best qualified to specify storage hardware, software and services. Can storage procurement be safely left to IT professionals, or should the owner of the data also be involved?
• Why – is your organisation buying storage capacity? Are your procurement priorities driven by the need for online performance, data storage compliance, business analytics or systems integrity and recoverability?
• What – are applications that place the greatest demands on your storage systems?
• Where – should your storage come from? Should you rely on the products of your principal server supplier, are there reasons to turn to a third party, and is it time to consider a storage utility provider?
• When – is the best time to invest in storage? Should storage procurement always been done in conjunction with new systems development deployment, or can storage systems be developed as in independent resource in their own right.

On Tuesday January 31st at 10.30am, a panel of experts moderated by a senior Information Age editor will debate the best answer to these questions in an Information Age Webinar.

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