This article discusses how to analyze the need for storage virtualization. It is written for IT storage managers and finance professionals interested in assessing the potential organizational impacts of storage virtualization.

The article is organized to provide a summary, a definition of a storage virtualization analysis, how the analysis process works and specifically how to perform an analysis of the need for storage virtualization.

Executive Summary

Analyzing the need for storage virtualization is a low risk project, which will take between 90-240 person hours. The degree of certainly of the analysis results is assessed as moderate.

Storage virtualization technology, software and processes and procedures are not yet completely mature. There are a number of different approaches to storage virtualization from storage, software, and switching vendors.

A project that analyzes the need for storage virtualization is likely to find that a full implementation will have a good business case (ROI and IRR>150%). The IT only business case is likely to be adequate (ROI & IRR ~100%). Storage Virtualization is an enabling technology that makes it significantly simpler to introduce other storage technologies, such as tiered storage and thin provisioning.

The major risks to a project that is analyzing the need for storage virtualization are the difficulty of designing a storage virtualization hierarchy and being able to analyze storage on an application basis.

The following factors will improve the likely success of a project to analyze the need for storage virtualization:

• IT is held in good regard by the user community
• Application service level agreements are in place
• The current storage allocation processes and procedures are well understood and efficient
• The primary storage vendors for the storage pools analyzed have solid storage virtualization offerings
• The primary storage vendors for the storage pools analyzed have solid references that show that the solution will scale to meet the projected growth
• There is a willingness and capability to exploit storage virtualization with other storage infrastructure improvements
• An effective sponsor of the project is identified.

Introduction

Storage virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single logical storage device that can be managed from a central point of control (console). Storage virtualization is commonly used in a storage area network (SAN), but is also offered for NAS. The management of storage devices takes significant storage administrator time and is error-prone. By hiding the complexity of the SAN, storage virtualization helps the storage administrator to perform the tasks of copy services, backup, archiving, and recovery with less effort, reduced elapsed time, and with fewer errors. A fuller definition can be found at Storage virtualization.

Storage virtualization has the potential to reduce complexity, and thereby reduce the costs of storage and storage management functionality in many environments. Storage virtualization is also an enabling technology, which makes implementation of tiered storage and data classification strategies much simpler. Storage virtualization is very likely to have initial costs of software to manage the environment, will have implementation costs, and will possibly have write-down costs for hardware that will no longer be able to be used.

This article is written for storage managers, finance professionals and IT people interested in analyzing the need and strategic fit of storage virtualization for their organizations. The article is a practical guide to performing a storage analysis and is organized as follows:

• What is a storage virtualization analysis?
• How does a storage virtualization analysis process work?
• What is the impact of using a storage virtualization analysis plan?
• How to develop a storage virtualization analysis plan

What is a storage virtualization analysis?

A storage virtualization analysis or assessment is a detailed investigation of the potential costs and benefits associated with a storage virtualization. The outcome of an assessment is to determine the degree to which storage virtualization will impact infrastructure from both a financial and non-financial perspective. The storage virtualization assessment plan serves as a planning resource and can be used to communicate the business case to management, identify likely storage virtualization targets, establish metrics for success and guide the overall storage virtualization agenda.

How does a storage virtualization analysis process work?

Intrinsic mechanics

A storage virtualization assessment is an analysis that should be completed over a period of weeks or months, with ongoing and periodic improvements to the plan as warranted. Specifically, the assessment should be updated as the storage virtualization effort evolves from the analyze phase to each subsequent phase, including design, build, implement, operate and exit.

For clarity the assessment or analyze phase can be broken into nine steps:

1. Initial assessment - a first pass view of the current situation at an organization to describe the current infrastructure, the cost structure, applications supported and FTE resources assigned
2. Analysis of the proposed solution or scenarios and the potential business impacts (described in more detail below) of implementing a storage virtualization
3. Selection of all or a part of the storage infrastructure to be analyzed and justified
4. lay out the costs of the current storage strategy over an agreed time period
5. lay out the costs of the proposed storage virtualization strategy over the same time period
6. Estimate the potential costs and benefits of future technologies that could exploit virtualization, such as tiered storage and thin provisioning
7. Create a “delta” business case from the differences between the two cases
8. The development of a report or presentation detailing findings, conclusions, assumptions and initial recommendation to stakeholders
9. The refinement of the plan based on stakeholder feedback
10. A final distribution of a report with agreed-upon recommendations

Tools and technology dependencies

Technology components in a storage virtualization analysis are typically confined to a variety of basic tools, including:

• Cost benefit analysis tools - typically delivered in a standardized format as required by financial departments
• Infrastructure assessment tools specific to storage virtualization - these may include vendor tools, in-house ROI tools, risk assessment frameworks, disaster planning checklists and other diagnostics useful to the analysis
• Project management and other collaborative tools
• Infrastructure and application 'agents' to identify and locate assets
• Evaluation tools that enable the business impact of increasing or decreasing the storage service levels for an application to be determined.

Technology dependencies are typically uncomplicated and often fall back to in-house or user developed spreadsheets.

Skills dependencies

Key skills needed to perform a successful storage virtualization analysis include:

• Staff knowledgeable about storage infrastructure
• A financial professional to ensure financial best practice and adherence to organizational prerequisites
• An interface to and/or direct participation from application owners
• Vendor input or in-house expertise to estimate configuration and pricing of proposed solutions

Often, organizations will solicit assistance from outside consultants to perform assessments drawing on best practice industry expertise.

Organizational dependencies

As with most projects, a storage virtualization analysis should include champions empowered to marshal resources necessary to complete an assessment. Access to reasonably accurate financial/cost data, configuration data and proposed costs are compulsory. It is important to stress that the storage virtualization analysis is iterative and should be approached in a manner that provides an initial 'first pass' view that can be made more granular, more detailed and more accurate over time.

Key stakeholders including storage staff, enterprise architects, financial representatives and application owners should be providing input to the process in order to ensure its adoption and backing. An executive sponsor might include a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at a larger organization or CIO in smaller settings.

What is the impact of developing and using a storage virtualization assessment plan?

A detailed assessment and analysis provides the foundation for executing a storage virtualization plan. It rationally injects facts into the decision process and provides a framework for infrastructure rationalization with input from key stakeholders including technology, finance and line of business constituents.

A storage virtualization analysis also sets goals, defines target success metrics and provides a framework for measuring ongoing improvement.

How to develop a storage virtualization assessment plan

Planning

A storage virtualization analysis starts with a planning phase that involves:

• Establishing goals
• Sizing the work effort
• Drafting work plans
• Setting time scales
• Budgeting resources

Establishing goals

The main driver behind storage virtualizations is providing the level of storage services that either:

• Maximize the net value delivered by an application to the business, or
• Meets the storage service levels that the users of an application require within a budget they are prepared to pay.

Sometimes other factors will drive storage virtualization decision-making, such as improvements in storage efficiency, increased business flexibility or reducing the storage budget in a high growth environment. A primary goal of the plan is to determine the believability of goals, critical success factors, risk factors and the best path for hitting targets.

Sizing the effort

The scope and size of a storage virtualization analysis will generally depend on five key factors, including:

1. Size and diversity of infrastructure targeted for storage virtualization
2. Diversity of applications and supporting storage pools
3. Degree of decentralization (i.e. the number of storage pools being consolidated into a storage virtualization pool)
4. Complexity of environment (e.g. workloads, disaster recovery services, copy services, etc.)
5. Desired level of depth and accuracy of the study.
6. Decision to include or not an estimate of the benefit of future projects such as tiered storage or thin provisioning, for which virtualization is a prerequisite.

Drafting work plans

The main tasks individuals perform during a storage virtualization analysis include:

• An infrastructure assessment - to include the documentation of the applications and businesses being served by target infrastructure, the amount of storage, types of storage, replacement costs of the infrastructure, data protection approaches, storage services required (copy, backup, remote copy, etc) and other key elements discussed later in this article
• Target / proposed storage virtualization analysis - a description of the "to be" state that includes estimates of how the tiered environment will appear to the applications (e.g. numbers of locations, amount of storage, protection goals, etc.)
• A financial and strategic analysis of the organizational impacts that include current and projected total cost of ownership (TCO), growth projections and other analysis pertinent to developing a business case.
• Estimating the costs and benefits of future projects that will exploit virtualization (optional)
• Validation of technical and business assumptions
• Communication of preliminary analysis to stakeholders
• Final analysis and communication to stakeholders

Setting time frames

Generally, a credible first pass analysis can be achieved in an elapsed time of six to nine weeks. The following rough schedule can be used as a guideline:

• Week 1: Kickoff meeting with stakeholders
• Weeks 2-3: Initial data collection on current "as is" environment
• Weeks 3-4: Research and proposed target solution ("to be")
• Weeks 4-5: Research future technologies that exploit virtualization (optional)
• Weeks 5-6: Gap analysis / capture missing data
• Weeks 6-7: Analyze business case and produce first pass report
• Weeks 7-8: Incorporate feedback and perform final assessment
• Weeks 8-9: Communicate findings, conclusions recommendations

Budgeting resources

Generally, a storage virtualization assessment can be constructed by a project lead and a team of a few individuals committed to the process. The team will likely consist of the following individuals:

• An executive sponsor
• A project lead
• One to two individuals with infrastructure expertise and general knowledge about application requirements
• A finance or IT finance professional or business analyst
• A line of business client

In general a typical storage virtualization assessment will consume between 90-240 person hours to complete. An outside consultant will typically cost between $10,000 - $25,000 to complete a basic assessment and up to $65,000 for more in depth analyses. The following can serve as guidelines of the amount of time required by key participants and other expenses.

• Kickoff meeting prep - Project lead 1 day + 1 hour review with sponsor
• Kickoff meeting - 1 - 1.5 hours for project lead, infrastructure manager, application manager, financial representative and line-of-business manager.
• Data collection: Series of one hour meetings with data collection person (analyst) and one to two individuals knowledgeable about infrastructure requirements.
• One day, infrastructure expert to construct basic storage virtualization design and cost structure (one-time and ongoing).
• Two days - analyst constructs business case / cost benefit analysis detail
• Two days – analyst assess costs and benefits of future exploitation of storage virtualization
• One to 1.5 hours to present business case to the team and capture comments
• One half day to revise assumptions, incorporate feedback
• Two days to construct final report / presentation to management committee
• One hour to present analysis case to leadership team
• One half day per quarter throughout the project to realign the plan based on design, build, implementation and operations feedback

Preparing

This section details the activities related to preparing for the assessment. Main activities include:

• Choosing the lead
• Selecting the team
• Delegating authorities
• Negotiating work plans
• Delegating work
• Installing escalation channels
• Establishing performance incentives
• Releasing resources

Choosing the lead

The main activities managed by the team lead include setting goals, scheduling resources, quality control (to include capturing missing information and ensuring communicability of results), keeping the project on schedule and within scope, approving and communicating changes. The team lead will also participate directly in key team meetings and often present to decision making bodies.

Experienced project management capabilities are necessary along with a basic understanding of the organization, its overall organizational objectives, general infrastructure and application knowledge, an ability to write and good communications skills. Consultative capabilities are extremely useful, particularly to establish clear goals, identify and close information gaps, ensure quality analysis and communicate results.

Selecting the team

As indicated, a storage virtualization assessment can be accomplished by a relatively small core project team comprised of approximately three individuals with limited support from one to five other contributors, depending on the size and scope of the project. Organizations with large, geographically distributed portfolios will often require more supporting team members to provide details of IT infrastructure and application/business requirements.

The team will likely consist of the following individuals:

• An executive sponsor with a stake in enterprise infrastructure. Direct access to or participation on the leadership team
• A project lead to provide impetus, manage resource, establish timescales and govern the project
• One to two individuals with infrastructure expertise and general knowledge about application requirements. A good rule-of-thumb is one infrastructure expert for each large storage pool.
• A finance or IT finance professional or business analysts capable of constructing a business case
• A line of business client knowledgeable in business requirements for applications and able to provide input into the tradeoffs between improved storage service levels and the cost of storage

Delegating authorities

Key actions for delegation include:

• An executive sponsor empowers the team and approves escalation processes
• A project lead delegates important functions to include: 1) data collection; 2) the construction of a proposed solution with rough costing; 3) data analysis and the preparation of the business case; 4) construction of the interim presentation; 5) construction of the final report to management.
• Project expert contributors may delegate information gathering tasks to include a list of existing inventory, replacement costs, capacities installed, protection strategies and FTE headcount supporting infrastructure.

Negotiating work plans and delegating work

As indicated, a typical storage virtualization assessment will consume between 75 - 85 person hours to complete. Work plans should be established along these milestones:

• Kickoff meeting:
  • Meeting prep - Project lead one day + review with management: Identify stakeholders, set meeting agenda, prepare kickoff presentation
  • Kickoff meeting - 1 - 1.5 hours for project lead, infrastructure manager, application manager, financial representative and line-of-business manager. Players should be prepared to briefly discuss infrastructure goals, challenges, current approach and application requirements. The scope of the applications and storage to be investigated should be set.
• Data collection begins:
  • Series of one hour meetings with data collection person (analyst) and one to two individuals knowledgeable about infrastructure requirements. The key here is to engage the appropriate number of individuals necessary to develop a credible picture of the existing storage infrastructure, costs and service levels.
• Build storage virtualization design:
  • One days, infrastructure expert to construct basic storage virtualization design and cost structure (one-time and ongoing).
  • Two hours to review the plan with technical and business stakeholders
• Business case constructed:
  • Two days - analyst constructs business case / cost benefit analysis detail
• Two days – analyst assess costs and benefits of future exploitation of storage virtualization (optional)
• Business case presented to team:
  • One to 1.5 hours to present business case to the team review assumptions and capture comments
• Final report written, delivered and presented:
  • One half day to revise assumptions, incorporate feedback
  • Two days to construct final report / presentation to management committee
  • One hour to present analysis case to leadership team
• Ongoing measurement:
  • One day per quarter throughout the project to realign the plan based on design, build, implementation and operations feedback

Installing escalation channels

The main points of escalation in a storage virtualization assessment typically arise from lack of commitment to the process, lack of quality information and/or disputes over assumptions used to determine costs and benefits.

The following escalation levels can be used as guidelines:

• Level 0 - team members resolve issues with no need for escalation
• Level 1 - issues brought to team lead who constructs an adjudication process within the team
• Level 2 - team lead constructs adjudication plan using resources outside the team (e.g. internal experts or external consultants)
• Level 3 - team lead is unable to resolve conflict and escalates to executive sponsor

Establishing performance incentives

Performance incentives should align constituents but at the same time reflect the roles of the players. The executive sponsor and senior infrastructure managers should receive incentives related to achieving the financial and strategic goals of the storage virtualization. Direct project incentives should be constructed for the team lead and the financial/business analyst constructing the case. These incentives should be tied to the project's timely delivery and quality of analysis as judged by the executive sponsor.

Management by objectives (MBO's) are appropriate for other team members with notation in performance reviews for participation and a 'black mark' for not supporting the project in earnest.

Releasing resources

Once the storage virtualization analysis project has been approved, an executive sponsor assigned, a team lead freed up and commitments secured from major participants, resources for project execution should be released.

Performing

This section discusses the performance aspects of a storage virtualization analysis.

Executing work plans

The following guidelines can be helpful in executing work plans:

• Preparing for kickoff meeting:

The project lead must prepare for the kickoff by setting the agenda, inviting in proper constituents, organizing meeting logistics and preparing the kickoff presentation. The kickoff presentation should introduce the team, describe roles and responsibilities, establish project goals and measurements for success, establish a process and time line, articulate escalation procedures and delegate actions. This presentation should be reviewed with the executive prior to the meeting.

Likely actions from the meeting include the creation and distribution of a set of questions for an infrastructure survey, the initiation of a proposed target solution with appropriate costing and the allocation of a resource (financial/business analyst) to construct the business case.

• Kickoff meeting:

The kickoff meeting is a one to one and one half hour meeting between the project lead, infrastructure manager(s), application manager(s), financial representative and line-of-business manager. Players should be prepared to commit resources to the completion of the project and briefly discuss infrastructure goals, challenges, current approach and application requirements. The outcome of the kickoff meeting is an agreed-upon project plan, time line, escalation process and time for the next meeting.

• Collecting data:

Very soon after the kickoff meeting data collection should commence. Data collection can be performed in a series of one hour meetings with the data collection person (analyst) and one to two individuals knowledgeable about infrastructure requirements. The key here is to engage the appropriate number of individuals necessary to develop a credible picture of the existing storage infrastructure, costs and service levels. In general, data should be collected around groups or "suites" of applications with a person familiar with the infrastructure supporting targeted applications providing data. The outcome of these sessions should be enough information to construct an "as is" total cost of ownership model.

Data collected should at a minimum include:

• Numbers and types of servers and amount of storage attached
  • Location and topology of servers and storage (distributed, collocated or consolidated)
  • Estimates of storage utilization levels
  • Levels of protection in place
  • Backup approach
  • Types of switching networks in place if any
  • Types of applications supported (in broad terms)
  • Rate of change of applications (high, medium, low)
  • Service level requirements for performance, availability, service management functions, and flexibility (high, medium, low for each)
  • Number of FTE's supporting data and storage management and enablement tasks
  • Historical and expected growth of storage by application
  • Current constraints and problems with storage infrastructure
  • Key storage software facilities in use (e.g. snapshots or remote mirrors)

• Building storage virtualization designs:

This step entails an infrastructure expert constructing a "to be" configuration based on rules-of-thumb and best practice experience. The configuration should provide a reasonable estimate of what the environment will look like after storage virtualization and the one-time and ongoing annual capital cost of the storage virtualization project. Vendors can often be helpful in constructing such scenarios.

This plan should be reviewed with other technical/configuration experts and business stakeholders to ensure functionality is being met.

Good rules-of-thumb for the configuration include:

• • The target storage virtualization should provide service levels that the departments paying for the storage will agree to pay for and have the budget in place
  • The resources currently installed should approximate the storage virtualization environment.

• Constructing the business case:

A financial analysis should be included in a storage virtualization assessment, typically quantifying three high-level factors, including:

1. One time and ongoing costs associated with a storage virtualization
2. The degree to which storage virtualization will improve storage management efficiency (i.e. the number of full time equivalent (FTE) staff needed to manage storage
3. The potential improvements in storage costs & storage utilization that can be achieved
4. The business benefits of improving storage service levels for applications, and the impact on the business of any reductions in service levels
5. The net costs and benefits of future exploitation of storage virtualization with tiered storage and thin provisioning

While these are not the only financial factors for consideration, they are typically the most dominant in terms of their business impact. Other financial factors including floor space and consumption of power and cooling resource are also often including in financial analysis of storage virtualization.

Other practical considerations include impacts on the storage network (switches, ports, etc), backup and data protection costs.

Non-financial factors included in storage virtualization assessments typically include:

1. The degree to which a storage virtualization impacts application availability
2. The degree to which a storage virtualization allows infrastructure changes to better support application requirements.
3. The degree to which a storage virtualization impacts application security
4. The degree to which a storage virtualization impacts application performance
5. The degree to which future exploitation projects can impact availability, flexibility, security, and application performance

The business case will be constructed by the analyst using inputs from the infrastructure survey and the design proposed for the storage virtualization environment. This is about a two-day effort and should be high level enough to be done expeditiously but detailed enough to be credible.

The three steps taken to construct the business case include:

1) Create a total cost of ownership model for the as is infrastructure assuming a 3, 4 or 5 year time horizon. Include all growth estimates in the calculations and project what the current installation will look like if no storage virtualization is accomplished.

Line items captured in the cost model may include:

• Storage Hardware
• Storage Management Software
• Switching/network
• Backup
• Other remote hardware and software
• Implementation and services
• Staffing (FTE's)
• Loss on books of any equipment

It is advisable when building the model to separate the one-time from the ongoing costs, and to account not only for project costs but ongoing management expenses.

2) Create a model to forecast the proposed storage virtualization infrastructure (forecast out for the same N years)

3) Create a “delta” business case from the differences between the two cases

Example of a delta storage virtualization business case

Figure 1 is an example of a business case with the potential line items included.

Project summary These lines are the key metrics that have been mandated by the organization, or agreed by the sponsor and may include unique key performance indicators not listed (e.g. availability levels).

Project costs This section includes all the additional costs to implement storage virtualization. Included might be:-

• Additional costs of storage & hardware & hardware maintenance
• Storage management software and maintenance costs
• Switch network costs
• Implementation services
• Loss on books from retired equipment and software

TCO Benefits This section includes the difference between the "as-is" costs of storage and storage administration and the proposed storage virtualization costs. In general this will be line items from the IT budget. Specific line items might include:

1. Reduced cost of storage (e.g., applications that do not require the level of storage currently provided, improved utilization of storage, etc)
2. Reduced cost of storage administration from improved tools to allocated storage
3. Reduced cost of storage operations & connectivity (e.g., reduced cost of ports, storage network switching, provisioning, back up, etc)
4. Reduced cost of storage transmission (this may be included if there are synchronous or asynchronous remote copy requirements)
5. TCO benefits of earlier implementation of other storage simplification projects (e.g., tiered storage). This can be expressed as a single one-time benefit of (say) a six month improvement in implementation schedule in the year that the initiative is expected.

Business Benefits This section includes the additional business benefits or business costs of storage virtualization. In general this will be line items from the business budget. Specific line items might include:

1. Business Value of Availability (this includes the business benefits from improved productivity from improved availability, as well as the business benefits from any improvement in disaster recovery (RTO & RPO))
2. Business Value of Performance (this includes the improved user productivity from better performance)
3. Business Value of Flexibility (this includes the improved user productivity from quicker implementation of applications and changes to applications)
4. Business Value of Security (this includes the expected decrease in loss from breaches of security)
5. Business benefits of earlier implementation of other storage simplification projects (e.g., tiered storage). This can be expressed as a single one-time benefit of (say) a six month improvement in implementation schedule in the year that the initiative is expected.

Financial Analysis This section calculates the key financial metrics mandated by the organization or agreed by the sponsor. This section includes all the benefit line items, both IT and business. This is a full business case with the impacts on the business as a whole.

Financial analysis (TCO only) This section calculates the same financial metrics as above, but includes only the IT benefit line items. This business case is from the point of view of IT only.

Two additional items should be included in the business case:=

1. A list of all the assumptions and sources of data
2. A conclusion and recommendation from a financial perspective

This business case example is inclusive of all the line items that might be considered. On many occasions it will be necessary to negotiate what level of saving is put in the final business case. For example, an IT executive may want to include a conservative estimate of the benefits to IT to maximize chances of achieving those benefits.

Rules-of-thumb when constructing a storage virtualization business case

• Start by answering the question, "over what period of time will my infrastructure be completely refreshed?" This should set the time frame over which the business case will be constructed and the basis of comparison for a storage virtualization environment. It is important to remember the business case compares staying the course with an existing approach with changing to a storage virtualization environment. Make sure to compare the as-is case to the to-be assuming that each will go through an entire refresh cycle. Only in this way can one achieve an accurate comparison.
• Generally, storage virtualizations yield better storage costs, but the benefit is realized over time, not immediately. Hardware savings are typically somewhat offset by the need for more expensive software and switching infrastructure (in the case of storage networks).
• Application availability typically improves when storage virtualizations occur because processes and procedures are simplified and made common, reducing the chance of errors and improving overall infrastructure quality.
• A storage virtualization typically enables better infrastructure flexibility as available resources can be reallocated when needed (assuming appropriate provisioning functionality is used).
• Storage virtualizations also enable more robust, affordable and higher quality business continuance strategies to be put in place.

Key risk impacts of developing a storage virtualization business case The business case shown in figure 1 is a likely case scenario. In order to present a complete financial analysis some sort of risk analysis should be done. The degree of sophistication of this analysis will depend to a large extent on the size of the project, and the standards of the organization. At a minimum it should include a doesn’t work worst case scenario (e.g., fall back to current storage philosophy), a worst case scenario (increase the costs and decrease the benefits to a (say) 90% confidence level that they will be achieved), and a best case scenario (potential benefits is project exceeds expectations.

• Business case presented to team:

The business case should be presented to the team to solicit feedback and refine prior to the final presentation to the decision making body. This can be accomplished in a one to one and one half hour meeting to review assumptions and capture comments

• Final report written, delivered and presented:

Feedback from the team meeting should be incorporated into the process in less than one half day to revise assumptions and rerun data. An additional two days will be required to construct the final report / presentation to the management committee.

Monitoring progress

It is advisable to spend approximately one day per quarter throughout the project to realign the plan based on design, build, implementation and operations feedback

Tracking resources

Team members should be advised to track their time so a post project evaluation can be performed. This will allow the accurate accounting for project costs and act as a feeder source for future analysis projects.

Scanning contingencies and solving problems

Contingencies should be considered constantly to include technology and price dislocations, market shifts and execution challenges. Some typical project-oriented hurdles follow with possible causes and advised contingency steps:

• Issue: Major changes in technology or pricing discredit fundamental assumptions. Cause: Original assumptions were flawed or team is not current. Action: Revisit assumptions and perhaps install more experienced team member.

• Issue: Market conditions change necessitating a change in strategy. Cause: Outside forces. Action: Place the project on hold and reevaluate.

• Issue: Infrastructure or application team is unable or unwilling to provide the necessary levels of detail and accuracy for the business case. Cause: Team does not have proper participation incentives in place or data collection team is inexperienced. Action: Adjust incentives, escalate or install more expert data collection staff.

• Issue: Disputes arise over the proposed configuration and cost detail for the target environment. Cause: Miscommunication about objectives, technical assumptions or business requirements or inexperienced professional building models. Action: Revisit assumptions and requirements, solicit vendor assistance, install new expert on the team.

• Issue: Disputes arise over the degree of likely benefits to be achieved. Cause: Political tensions (e.g. manager does not want to commit to level of benefits), dubious projections, lack of credible case examples. Actions: Negotiate targets within a range, obtain best practice metrics of likely achievement.

• Issue: Project falls behind schedule. Cause: Unrealistic expectations, other priorities, lack of credible data, lack of resource. Action: Reset expectations, escalate to determine priority, perform additional research to improve data sets, realign schedule and work plans, reevaluate incentive structure.

Paying incentives

Upon successful project completion, incentive targets should be reviewed expeditiously and performance incentives delivered where appropriate. This can be accomplished only with incentives related to project performance. Project result incentives will need to wait until enough experience is gathered in the customer base to audit results.

Promoting

The promoting phase involves testing and auditing results, transferring knowledge gained and distributing operational responsibilities. Storage virtualization will be a new concept to both IT and business staff, and will require “thought leaders” to embrace it.

Testing results

The ability to test or audit results is dependent upon: 1) the initial setting of clearly communicated goals that are measurable; 2) the commitment to measure and agree on results; 3) the expertise and credibility to measure results. Key measurements for a storage virtualization analysis include:

• The accuracy of the existing installation cost data on a relative scale (e.g. 1 to 10). Are the results deemed credible by finance? Are hidden costs exposed? Are chargebacks defensible? Can the systems used to track results be transferred to other projects?
• The perceived accuracy of the proposed storage virtualization costs-- are the estimates accurate within a degree of comfort defined by management?
• The time scale required to complete the project - was it reasonable? Was the project on schedule and on budget within acceptable levels determined by management?
• Potential business impact - does the proposed project demonstrate the financial and non-financial attributes that make it desirable? How desirable (e.g. what percentile relative to other projects)?
• All Risks Identified – are all the risks to a storage virtualization implementation been identified? Have the risks been included in the worst case scenario?

These attributes should evolve as the storage virtualization project evolves, specifically tracking the proposed costs and benefits over the life of the project and into post-implementation phase.

Transferring knowledge

Training a wider team on the process of analyzing the need for storage virtualization can be accomplished by:

• Documenting the process and results
• Communicating results in public
• Publishing the process and results for peer review
• Performing formal training
• Publishing a case study
• Making available artifacts used in the assessment (tools, templates, etc.).

Distributing operational responsibilities

Once completed and made procedure, the assessment process and results can be transferred to a day-to-day stakeholder to maintain and keep the analysis up-to-date. The recipient of the process should have appropriate incentives in place to maintain the analysis and extend its usefulness. Incentives may include job descriptions, MBO's or other incentives for ongoing improvement.

Parting

This section addresses exit strategies. It is important to note the useful life of an assessment can be many years and professionals should be encouraged to innovate and improve the process to extend its useful life.

Reconciling plans with actuals

Systems should be in place to track expectations with actual performance. Ideally, these are automated as part of the day-to-day metrics captured by an organization.

Finalizing incentive payments

The tracking of actual versus plan is the basis for paying incentives on performance-based objectives, as well as ongoing incentives that are in place.

Dissolving the effort

Dissolution should occur when the cost of maintaining the process exceeds its business value, or when the storage virtualization technology selected is no longer the most appropriate and/or the technology is so longer supported by vendors.

Related research: Managing geometric data growth in SANs