When it comes to storage optimization, the question is where, not what

Contributed by Frederic Bourget (Donnerstag, 06 Mai 2010) | Category : Email storage optimization

While many companies have spent millions on storage optimization, making sure they put the information with the right applications is often the most important element.

In a recent interview with NetworkWorld, Mark Diamond, CEO of Contoural, a storage consulting firm, said that many in the industry make the mistake of simply "buying new stuff to optimize your storage." Instead, said Diamond, it's about determining whether the data is stored in the right place.

Diamond also notes that while 60 percent of data is overprotected, at least 10 percent of the data is not protected at all, and not compliant with service level agreements.

"If you don't know how to drive and you're driving a broken car, buying a new car will not fix your problem [of not knowing how to drive a car]," said Ashish Nadkani, principal consultant with GlassHouse Technologies, an enterprise-storage consulting firm, in an interview with the magazine.

There are many ways that vendors have been trying cut costs without purchasing new products, writes ITVARNews Network's Pragya Gupta. Gupta writes that, among other strategies, deduplication is one of the best solutions that cater to many high-priority needs of companies. These include "saving storage costs, removing redundancy, and optimizing network bandwidth."