In an ideal world, most data would be compartmentalized as follows: 10% on high-end storage, 40% on midrange storage, and the remainder -- all your "business non-critical data" -- on low-cost storage.
These were the insights offered recently by Ron Lovell, storage practice director at Greenwich Technology Partners, who spoke on the role of low-cost disk technologies at Storage Decisions 2003.
According to Lovell, low-cost storage has increasingly come to mean network-attached storage (NAS), based on two new emerging kinds of disk drives: serial ATA (SATA), and serial-attached SCSI (SAS).
In his presentation, Lovell provided a high-level technology overview of SATA and SAS technologies, then launched into a round-up of major storage players and products based on these disk drives. He also discussed key areas where low-cost disk may be appropriate, as compared to the more costly SCSI and Fibre Channel-based arrays.
About the speaker: As Storage Practice Director at Greenwich Technology Partners (GTP), Mr. Lovell is responsible for designing and managing GTP's storage consulting practice, which provides strategic storage consulting to enterprise clients, in a variety of industries. Prior to joining GTP, Mr. Lovell was Director Of Storage Consulting at StorageNetworks, where he was responsible for designing and managing the delivery of storage-related Information Technology consulting services to StorageNetworks clients.
Before this he held the position of Director Of Professional Services at Polaris Service/Akibia. At Polaris he was responsible for developing and managing the delivery of Information Technology consulting services for clients worldwide. He managed a staff of 35 consultants and grew the business to reach an annual revenue of $5M. Before joining Polaris he was the Director Of Information Technology at Sager Electronics. Mr. Lovell set the strategic IT direction of this rapidly growing $300M Electronic Components Distributor, overseeing a $6.5M annual budget, and a staff of 30. He managed their ERP/HRIS package selection and implemented their Warehouse Management System.
