Originating Author: Dave Vellante
Today’s tiered storage differs dramatically from past HSM (hierarchical storage implementations) in that the emphasis now is on non-disruptive disk storage whereas in the past, tape-based strategies were predominant and highly disruptive. In addition, high-performance data movement (aka asynchronous, disruptive data movement), policy software and data classification approaches have evolved substantially to accommodate a world increasingly dominated by unstructured data growth.
Interestingly, a decade ago, it was common to make jokes about mainframe practices that apparently had little value left. RACF hairballs and VTOC slurs were good humor back then. It's ironic to observe the development of open systems and the problems that the lack of critical information and associated processes is causing. The convenience to storage administrators to be able to easily access metadata that lists the contents of data sets, their location, size, etc. would be enormous, but alas it doesn't come that easily in open systems.
Action Item: Storage administrators should look to mainframe best practices and tap the resident process expertise where possible as related to tiered storage, and especially tier 3. Take good storage administration practices surrounding HSM, SRM, archiving, backup, data movement, space reclamation, etc., and apply modernized tools to address today's open storage needs.