The days of blindly adding disk space to meet the increasing demand for critical business data are over. The new order requires CIOs to frst consider the full storage environment including data availability, resource utilisation, data security, disaster recovery, environmental concerns and then plan their architecture.

To do this effectively, CIOs must understand the business needs behind requests for storage. IT teams need to collaborate with business users and identify what they need to store, archive and retrieve.

Where should a CIO begin? The frst step is to determine the value of the data that is necessary for making informed business decisions. In my view, only primary data needs to be ‘data in motion’; the rest can reside on inexpensive storage devices or just be discarded.

This analysis cannot be done using tools. Human expertise is critical to ensure that storage systems are used smartly; and therefore IT teams need to be involved in the classifcation process.

Apart from technology-related issues, environmental and regulatory factors must be kept in mind while architecting the storage infrastructure for the enterprises of the future. This is a signifcant shift from the past and CIOs need to assess and design their storage systems visa-vis the evolving environmental and legal framework.

How are CIOs coping? While there are several different approaches, the answer often lies in a blend of smarter technologies and better strategic planning.

In this year’s Storage Special, we analyse the most popular enterprise storage trends together with an assessment of their acceptability and adoption amongst enterprises. Our research and analysis suggests that CIOs who are in sync with the business needs of their enterprise are the ones who manage to use storage effciently. Their solutions enable the enterprise to grow quicker, stay nimble, and do more with less.

We are committed to highlighting best practices amongst industry leaders and hope that you will fnd value in the features and our cover story. As always, I look forward to your feedback.

rahul.mani@9dot9.in