TRACK 3 (EXECUTIVE): Managing Storage -- A Plan of Attack Roles and Responsibilities in the Storage Group John Webster Senior Analyst and Founder Data Mobility Group

Agenda Storage Management – a “practice” with multiple “disciplines” Business opportunity vs. business risk – a balancing act The Disciplines The storage domain as a business entity Using storage to mitigate business risk Managing data – the foundational discipline Management by Application (MbA) – a thematic variation Where are the boundary lines drawn? Wrap up and Q&A

Cross-Tab Label 0/0 Are you creating a separate storage management group within the IT department? 1.Yes, been there, done that. 2.Yes, we’re in the process of doing that now. 3.We’re evaluating whether or not we should do this. 4.We’d like to but don’t have the resources. 5.No, bad idea.

Complexity in Multiple Dimensions Fibre Channel fabric architectures Ethernet and IP Server clustering Data backup and restoration Wide- and metropolitan- area networking protocols Bridging, routing, and switching Host bus adapters and drivers Object modeling Long-term archiving Data traffic management Diagnostic and recovery technologies Enterprise management applications Database and file system architectures Security

Managing Storage A good way to solve a complex problem: Break it down into manageable pieces. Let’s call the manageable pieces “disciplines.” Let’s call storage management a “practice” built on storage management “disciplines.”

Three Storage Management Disciplines (a proposal) Business Management Risk Management Data Management

Storage Business Management Management of the storage domain as a business entity, complete with customers that must be kept happy, and a method for tracking and charging-back usage of capacity and services.

Storage Business Management (2) Resurgence of the utility model: Did the SSPs have it right? Do you think of them as storage users or storage customers? Riding herd on ROI has become critical Can you manage your customers with Service Level Agreements (SLAs)? On-demand capacity provisioning QoS

Cross-Tab Label 0/0 Do you currently use SLAs for storage-related services? 1.Yes. 2.We use SLAs for broader sets of IT services. 3.No. 4.What’s an SLA?

SLA Implications SLAs imply that you can: Measure, measure, measure (“You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Computer Measurement Group) Identify performance problems and solve them Forecast

Risk Management The use of the storage domain to mitigate corporate risk through the use of well established backup-and-recovery procedures, business continuance, disaster recovery and most recently, security functions.

Risk Management Disaster recovery and business continuity Backup and restore Security Compliance Are all of these purely within the storage domain? Are any of these under the purview of other corporate executives? (Examples: Corporate Security Officer, Corporate Risk Manager, Corporate Compliance Officer, Corporate Legal Counsel….)

Mapping IT Risk From the Viewpoint of a Financial Risk Manager Source: Contingencies.org Again, note the position of “IT System Failure”

Managing Risk From the Viewpoint of a Financial Risk Manager (2) Note the position of “IT System Failure” Source: Contingencies.org

Cross-Tab Label 0/0 Does senior executive management understand the importance of IT continuance and recoverability? 1.Yes, they get it and give us the financial resources we need when we need them 2.Yes, they get it but we still have to fight for financial resources 3.No, they don’t get it right now, but could in the future 4.No, they don’t get it now and never will

Data Management The management of data contained within the storage domain

Data Management (2) Underpins or serves as a foundation for the other two discipline areas Potentially encompasses databases, file systems (including distributed or global file systems) Includes management of data copies and data migration techniques

Cross-Tab Label 0/0 How many TB can one person manage? This is a silly question

MBA: A Thematic Variation Management By Application (MBA) Recognizes that applications, business policies and storage are not worlds apart from one another Starts at the application level, then works down the processing “stack” to the underlying storage environment Help is on the way: Applications Aware Storage (Vendor-driven R&D effort) Applications Optimized Storage (User-driven requirement)

And, One Last Question… Where’s the boundary between the storage group and systems/networks/database groups?

Last Words Storage users are storage customers Risk: Its about managing exposure MbA brings world unification

ASK THE EXPERT in the Northeast Exhibit Hall MONDAY 5-6 PM TUESDAY 5-6 PM

Cross-Tab Label 0/0 Please rate John Webster’s talk, “Managing Storage -- A Plan of Attack.” 1. Poor 2. Fair 3. Good 4. Very Good 5. Excellent