The best technology buys are ones that pay for themselves – fast – and promise an unambiguous stream of very good future returns for both the business and the IT organization. Virtualization using thin provisioning looks like one of the best technology buys in a long time. First, simply by reclaiming dead storage, the technology should be able to rapidly improve the space productivity of disk by up to 40% without any appreciable impact on performance. Second, by virtualizing both the delivery (disk-to-controller) and service (controller-to-application) sides of storage, the technology can catalyze much more effective allocation procedures and overall working relationships within IT (infrastructure to application development) and between IT and business (applications operations to business operations). A thorough assessment of the HDS UPS V – the first comprehensive implementation of thin provisioning technology from one of storage’s "big boys" – should be on the "to-do" list of every enterprise storage group.
Action Item: Storage administrators should carefully study the applicability of the HDS USP V to their business’s storage needs and get the results in front of their CIO, who will appreciate finally having a great storage financials story to tell to CFOs while setting up overall service improvements to application owners.
Editor's Note: On January 14, 2008, EMC announced Virtual Provisioning, its version of thin provisioning. This further validates the technology and the advice in this note applies to EMC's offering as well.
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