When core IT receives a new workload, application owners tell IT what storage resources the workload needs as it enters production and what the expected resources are when it matures. Core IT then has to look at its available storage resources to determine if a current storage system can host the new workload or if it requires a new system.
The problem for core IT is they often don’t have any tools to analyze current storage resources quickly. There is also an ever-present fear of the new workload impacting the performance of workloads already on the storage system. As a result, what typically happens is that the organization buys another storage system instead of taking the risk of overloading an existing one. At no point in the process does the topic of storage consolidation come up, instead the organization adds another new system to the data center, and the number of storage vendors continues to grow.
IT Needs Storage Insight
The primary need for IT is storage insight. IT needs a solution that is in place, before the new workload comes online, that is continuously monitoring utilization of storage resources like IO, bandwidth, and capacity across all the multiple storage systems in the environment. This insight provides IT with the information needed to decide if placing a new workload on existing storage resources is the right move and what impact that new workload will cause.
If the risks are still too high, then IT can confidently buy a new system for that specific workload. The same storage insight solution can then provide insight into this new storage system to make sure the organization leverages it fully.
StorageSwiss Take
A storage insight solution provides IT the ability to manage multiple storage systems via a unified dashboard view of current storage system status. At the same time, it ensures that storage resources are efficiently used thereby slowing down further storage diversity. IT can embrace and control storage diversity at the same time.
Interested in learning more? Join Storage Switzerland and SolarWinds for our on demand webinar “Three Steps to Multi-Vendor Storage Excellence.”
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George Crump is the Chief Marketing Officer at VergeIO, the leader in Ultraconverged Infrastructure. Prior to VergeIO he was Chief Product Strategist at StorONE. Before assuming roles with innovative technology vendors, George spent almost 14 years as the founder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland. In his spare time, he continues to write blogs on Storage Switzerland to educate IT professionals on all aspects of data center storage. He is the primary contributor to Storage Switzerland and is a heavily sought-after public speaker. With over 30 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US, he has seen the birth of such technologies as RAID, NAS, SAN, Virtualization, Cloud, and Enterprise Flash. Before founding Storage Switzerland, he was CTO at one of the nation's largest storage integrators, where he was in charge of technology testing, integration, and product selection.
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