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Study Shows High Stakes in 2003 for Storage System Customers and Vendors

Yankee Group report addresses key issues

BOSTON -- In response to increasingly stringent federal guidelines and regulations regarding data retention, enterprises have had to develop compliance strategies to properly save documents, files and correspondence. The result is an emerging storage market segment, which the Yankee Group calls "content storage."

Compliance with regulations and guidelines will drive companies in multiple vertical segments to deploy storage systems that better handle near-line backup, archiving, and ongoing access of fixed content, according to a new Yankee Group report, "Next-Generation Storage Systems Target Application Requirements and Efficiency."

The Yankee Group estimates the content storage market will more rapidly address this growing corporate requirement.

"Customers need to make more informed decisions about storage systems in 2003: Gone are the days of just buying a dumb storage array or feature-slim NAS system for your data," said Jamie Gruener, Yankee Group enterprise computing and networking senior analyst. "Now, the decision must include factors such as matching application requirements and data quality of service, to storage system features, system performance, availability, network support, standards adherence, and availability. Most important will be determining how application data is best supported by new generations of storage systems from established market vendors and startups."

The shift to network storage accelerated in 2002 and will increase in speed over the next several years as IP storage systems (both block and file) come to market to improve the ease of deployment and management of network storage. Crucial to customer adoption of these systems will be adherence to industry standards, price and ease of use. Fibre channel networks will continue to be the mainstay of the network storage market for the next half decade, but will face increasing competition from IP-based systems that address a mix of different application needs. -- The Yankee Group
Miriam Jones is a former chief copy editor of Government Technology, Governing, Public CIO and Emergency Management magazines.