Hu's Blog

As noted in previous posts, capacity efficiency has two dimensions: allocation efficiency and utilization efficiency.

If you Google storage efficiencies, eventually you will get a Wikipedia definition, which describes storage efficiency as “the ability to store and manage data that consumes the least amount of space with little or no impact on performance, resulting in a lower total operational cost.”  Wikipedia also references the SNIA definition, which notes:

In response to my last blog, Jon Toigo was kind enough to post a training piece that he wrote last year, reminding us that capacity is only one part of storage efficiency.

The greatest tool for storage efficiency is storage virtualization, which enables the extension of other storage efficiency tools like tiering and thin provisioning to existing storage systems that do not have that capability. It also reduces operational costs by providing a common pool of dynamic shared resources under a common set of management tools.

Since I posted my trends for 2012, I have been looking at what other bloggers have been predicting.

Q1 2012 marks a major turning point in the storage industry. After 50 years of price declines in the magnetic disk industry, we are seeing what most analysts predict to be a 5% to 20% increase in disk prices due to the catastrophic floods in Thailand, which has had a major impact on the disk [...]

At the top of my list of trends to watch in 2012 was an increased focus on storage efficiency due to economic uncertainty and hard disk supply shortages—stemming from last year’s floods in Thailand. Yesterday IDC and Gartner both reported declines in 4th quarter PC shipment of 1.4 to 0.2%, compared to 2010 that was [...]

Happy 2012! While this year is starting with a lot of uncertainty around the world economy and supply/demand questions, there are still areas of assurance. One is that you can still do more with less to meet your storage needs.

As we close out 2011, the storage industry has seen significant growth based on budgets, which were established in the beginning of the year. However, over the course of 2011, we saw natural disasters, political upheaval, and heightened economic turmoil. Companies are now looking ahead to 2012 with a great deal of uncertainty around their [...]

The big hype in 2012 will be around Big Data. The explosion of unstructured data and mobile applications will generate a huge opportunity for the creation of business value, competitive advantage, and decision support if this data can be captured, stored, managed, accessed, analyzed, and visualized. Companies that provide these capabilities for Big Data [...]