The biggest challenge in storage management today is doing more with fewer dollars. This is an outgrowth from the heady days of the late 1990s when storage capacity decisions were very easy: just buy more. Today, according to Jamie Gruener, a senior analyst at the Yankee group, "it's crucial to understand how to manage and automate storage tasks." And, how to better manage what you already have.

One way to manage storage more efficiently is to write a strategic plan that looks at what you already have and what you will need going forward. "It's not an easy task," says Gruener, but if done thoroughly and thoughtfully, a strategic plan can be the cornerstone of your company's storage decisions and a highly visible building block for your own career advancement.

The first thing to realize is that you can't develop a strategic plan without the full buy-in and cooperation from your company's management. Next step: ask the business managers to forecast what their storage capacity needs will be in the next fiscal year. Ask if any new business ventures are planned. Then set a deadline for completing the plan.

There are five distinct phases in creating a strategic plan, according to Gruener. Phase one consists of an assessment of what you have currently deployed. In this initial phase you answer questions such as "What is working? And what's not? What do we automate today? What should we automate going forward? Where are the top priority needs today, one year and two years out?"

In phase two take what Gruener calls a "capacity snapshot" and then try to nail down growth forecasts. (Your growth forecasts should predict the impact on your storage systems, as well as networks, management tools and staffing requirements.) Any good SRM tool should help you answer the following capacity questions: "How much? Where? How allocated?" Then, says Gruener, determine the "capacity profile." For example, what applications are the largest storage consumers? What is the average capacity for each application? Then map that onto what applications are considered mission critical to your company.

In phase three the rubber starts to hit the road: this is the time that you map your planning goals to present capacity. In other words, as Gruener puts it: "What do I have and what do I need?" In this phase it's appropriate to consider how new storage technologies will effect your capacity requirements. For example, how will deploying new products or initiatives, such as iSCSI, virtualization, a chargeback system, extending a SAN and so on, boost your capacity utilization.

Once your capacity forecast is complete, factor out rough costs associated with each project. Don't forget to build in contingency plans for accelerated growth (the economy has to turn around some day).

Phase four addresses the question of how your storage operations will change as you move forward with new storage systems and what kind of staffing you'll need to manage this new storage infrastructure. How, for example, will your backup and restore policies change? Is it time to beef up or institute a disaster recovery system? How will your storage networking policies mess with your networking systems? Next, phase five kicks in: the vendor and technology selection process.

This is the part of the strategic plan when you formalize the buying process. Obviously, there are a lot of different ways to select a vendor, but perhaps the most important thing to remember says Gruener is "negotiate, negotiate and negotiate."

Once you finalize your strategic plan, revise it. Remember the plan is a living document. Measure your forecasts and make needed adjustments. And use the strategic plan to standardize and automate operations, as well as spearhead new storage initiatives and innovations.

Your management abilities will be tested as you work with many different people within your company to build consensus and agreement for the plan. But remember that a well-developed strategic plan will also bring the rewards both to you and your company.