In 2004, the penetration of storage area networks (SANs) in core business markets has crossed the 50% line for the first time. According to research by storage market consultancy Macarthur Stroud International, 57% of all mid-sized and large businesses in Europe now hold all or part of their data on a SAN. That was up from 47% the year before.
Organisations are clearly looking to the efficiencies of SAN architectures as a means of meeting soaring storage demands, with the SAN users reporting that the volume of data stored is more than doubling each year.
Macarthur Stroud estimates that sales in the storage networking market will increase by 13% in 2005, on par with the 13.5% compound annual growth rate predicted for 2004 to 2007. By 2007, organisations will be spending €24 billion (£16.8 billion) on SAN systems, says the market researcher.
The market for storage software will experience even faster growth, with overall revenues rising by 28% in 2005 alone.
Hamish Macarthur, CEO of Macarthur Stroud, says that this steep growth proves that “end users are demanding more from their existing storage and that they are looking to automate many administrative and management functions to free up costly and often limited IT human resources.”
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