Data explosion - sound familiar?
Everywhere we look data is growing at an exponential rate. VMWare, Oracle and Exchange are just a few of the various drivers of storage growth causing people to reevaluate storage platforms.

As IT architects, SAN administrators and Storage professionals approach the task of storage re-architecture, here are a few important points to consider:

1. Cost - How much will it cost me to buy, upgrade, implement and manage this storage system?
2. Value - What will this storage system offer me that drives specific value to my business?
3. Software - What software set is available and are the tools necessary? Examples can include space efficient snapshots, Exchange integration, active-active failover and virtualization?
4. Software Licensing - How is the operating system and copy services software licensed? per array or per TB?
5. Scalability - Can this system grow with our business, and will it support various types of drives, such as SAS, solid state, fiber channel and SATA?
6. Performance - How well can this system process current and future workload, even under the pressure of multiple concurrent applications and databases?
7. Management - Can this array give me specific metrics that allow me to prevent and quickly solve performance bottlenecks inside as well as outside the array?
8. Availability - How could this array allow our business to continue operations - both onsite and offsite?
9. Connectivity - Will this array support the protocols and connectivity I want and need? iSCSI, FC, 10GIGE, CIFS, NFS, NAS etc.
10. Simple - Can I work on this system myself in a timely manner or will it take an army of $400 per hour contractors to resize LUNs, reconfigure RAID groups and complete proactive planning?

Even with all the growth and complexity, storage is fun place to be these days. Reliant Technology helps IT professionals like you architect storage systems and upgrades that drive business value. To speak with a storage consultant about an coming project or upgrade call 877-227-0828, email sales@reliant-technology or fill out the form on this page to get started.