1. IBM Global Technology Services October 2011
Thought Leadership White Paper
A blueprint for smarter
storage management
Optimizing the storage environment with automation and analytics

2. 2 A blueprint for smarter storage management
Contents Finally, a common contributor to the usage paradox is that,
because the provisioning process for storage can be labor
2 Introduction intensive and time consuming, application owners and other
3 The basics of optimal storage management consumers of storage tend to over-request. The thinking seems
to be that they can save lead time and paperwork by requesting
4 Making smarter storage management a reality more storage less frequently and letting it sit until needed.
8 The bottom line: Labor and infrastructure savings
9 IBM can help
Big data: The big challenge
Introduction Adding to the storage dilemma is the exponential growth in
The skyrocketing demand for data storage capacity is a major data that must be stored. Every day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of
driver of escalating IT expense. The costs associated with new data are generated. In fact, 90 percent of the data in
the world today has been created in the last two years alone.
storage growth include not just additional or upgraded devices,
This “big data” is being generated by billions of devices—from
but also data center floor space, electricity, HVAC and ongoing
sensors used to gather climate information to GPS chips in
system management.
smart phones—as well as posts to social media sites, digital
pictures and videos posted online, Internet text and docu-
The addition of storage capacity continues to grow exponen- ments, medical records, and transaction records such as
tially, even though most organizations—due to over-provisioning online purchases and cell phone call data.
and poor visibility into their storage environment—use no
more than 30 to 40 percent of their available storage. Big data spans three dimensions: variety, velocity and volume.
There are several factors contributing to this paradox. The Variety: Big data extends beyond structured data to include
perception is that “storage is cheap,” so storage requests are unstructured data of all varieties: text, audio, video, click
streams, log files and more.
routinely honored without challenge. Individuals who have
the responsibility for storage performance or access to data are
Velocity: Often time sensitive, big data must be used as it is
sensitive to performance issues and reluctant to risk degradation streaming into the enterprise in order to maximize its value
of service for want of high-tier storage. to the business.
Volume: Big data comes in one size: Huge. Enterprises
are awash with data, easily amassing terabytes and even
petabytes of information.

3. IBM Global Technology Services 3
TIER Description
COST / PERFORMANCE / AVAILABILITY
TIER 0 Ultra-high performance. Meet QoS for high-end,
Solid state drives only mission-critical applications.
Zettabytes • Storage requirements growing 20% - 40% per year
High performance and/or availability. Drive up
• Information doubling every 18 - 24 months Instrumented. utilization of high-ended storage subsystems and still
Interconnected. TIER 1 maintain performance QoS objectives.
• Storage budgets up 1% - 5% in 2010
Intelligent. For low-capacity requirements, smaller, less powerful
Exabytes • Storage utilization remains <50% devices may meet tier definition.
Medium performance and/or availability. Revenue-
generating applications. Meet QoS for non-mission-
Petabytes
+ TIER 2 critical applications.
For low-capacity requirements, smaller, less powerful
devices may meet tier definition.
The information explosion
meets budget reality
Low performance and/or availability. Non-mission-
Terabytes + TIER 3 critical applications.
Gigabytes
TIER 4 Archival, long-term retention; backup.
2000 2005 2010 2015
Figure 1: Smarter systems—instrumented, interconnected, intelligent— Figure 2: Tiering—an underlying principle of information lifecycle
are creating a data explosion. The digital universe is projected to grow management—is a storage networking method where data is stored on
from 1.8 zettabytes in 2011 to 72 zettabytes by 2015. various types of media based on performance, availability and recovery
requirements.
A word about tiering The basics of optimal storage
management
Not all data is created equal: There are many types in a typical As the demands on IT continue to grow, organizations face
IT environment, and its value fluctuates during its lifecycle. significant challenges around storage growth, continued cost
For example, email is highly critical initially, but its value often pressures and complexity of available technologies. Best practices
drops rapidly. Project data files may be less critical at any for storage optimization begin with the following principles:
given moment but remain important longer.
●● Store only what is needed and only for as long as it needs
Tiering—an underlying principle of information lifecycle
management—is a storage networking method where data to be stored. To accomplish this many organizations apply
is stored on various types of media based on performance, data reduction technologies such as data compression
availability and recovery requirements (see Figure 2). In and de-duplication, and demand management processes.
general, newer data and data that must be accessed more ●● Get more out of existing storage infrastructure through
frequently is stored on faster but more expensive storage virtualization, thin provisioning, consolidation and proper
media, while less critical data is stored on less expensive monitoring.
but slower media. Data intended for restoration in the event
of data loss or corruption could be stored locally—for fast
recovery—while data stored only for regulatory purposes
could be archived to lower-cost media. A tiered storage
infrastructure can consist of as few as two to as many as
five or six tiers.

4. 4 A blueprint for smarter storage management
●● Data should be moved to the “right” place—and done so
on an ongoing basis. Data often loses value over its lifecycle— Smarter storage management:
sometimes quickly—creating opportunities to optimize
by moving data from expensive disk to lower-cost disk (see • Reduces complexity while preserving storage infrastructure
Figure 3). Even active data may have a requirements pattern flexibility
that changes periodically (for example, the data associated with • Governs both supply and demand to minimize custom
some quarter-close applications may only have high perfor- solutions and reactive work and drives this governance
mance requirements for a few weeks each quarter). Having through service automation
the ability to move such data up and down the disk hierarchy • Uses analytics to infuse intelligence into tools and automa-
tion for workflow, migration and provisioning to achieve
as necessary can allow for a more optimal storage hierarchy
operational efficiency
supporting an organization’s data requirements.
• Frees up staff to focus on more critical projects
Prior Storage Pyramid New Storage Pyramid
+
Making smarter storage management
Tier 0 Tier 0
1-5%
a reality
Tier 1 15-20% Tier 1 IBM’s smarter approach to storage management includes a set
$
Tier 2 20-25% Tier 2
of tools, services, and software and hardware technology to help
clients realize cost-saving opportunities in storage. By pulling
-
-
Tier 3 50-60% Tier 3
together virtualization, a storage service catalog driven by busi-
ness policy, workflow automation and IBM Research-developed
solutions, IBM can help clients optimize the storage
Figure 3: Most companies, due to over-provisioning and poor visibility into
their storage environment, have too much data on Tier 1 storage. A more environment.
balanced distribution across all tiers can improve application performance
and data availability and help lower storage portions of the IT budget.
IBM’s smarter storage management approach comprises three
essential elements to making smarter storage management a
Using these principles as a foundation for storage management reality within a storage environment:
practices, organizations can be prepared to take a smarter
approach to storage management which addresses exploding Essential element #1: Create a responsive infrastructure
storage growth and costs. across multiple vendor storage assets and tiers of storage. A
responsive infrastructure reduces complexity and lowers overall
What follows is a discussion of IBM’s actionable approach to costs of storage while preserving flexibility. Storage virtualization
smarter storage management. improves the utilization and efficiency of the storage hardware
resources. Optimizing the environment through virtualization

5. IBM Global Technology Services 5
generally results in fewer storage components that need to be IBM’s approach to virtualization is:
managed, making it easier to monitor and protect critical data.
A virtualization effort in the storage environment can decrease ●● Vendor neutral: It provides integration and a single point
complexity and free up resources, as well as reduce costs. of control for more than 120 multi-vendor storage systems.
●● Reliable: It uses standards and repeatable processes with
In a virtualized storage environment, multiple storage devices the latest IBM virtualization technology and products.
function as a “virtual” single storage unit, making tasks such as ●● Proven to deliver cost savings: In one example, a virtualiza-
provisioning or placement, application migration, tier migration, tion effort for an IBM client reduced annual KW hours
replication and archiving easier and faster. Storage assets that by 3,565,320; recovered 1,700 square feet of floor space;
previously had no common interface can be used interchange- produced annual energy savings of US$320,878 and
ably. Among other things, that interface enables data to be reduced annual maintenance costs by 57 percent.
moved to less expensive tiers of heterogeneous storage in the
virtualized storage environment as the data ages without inter- Essential element #2: Standardize storage usage and
ruption to the business. process holistically for all data. Improving the way storage
is used begins with changing the behavior around how it is
Getting more utilization from the existing storage assets is requested. Standardization minimizes reactive work and custom
one of the best ways to manage rapid information growth and solutions and lays the foundation for workflow automation.
big data more effectively. Improving the utilization of existing Standardization, implemented through a storage service catalog,
storage is preferable to adding physical storage devices, because ensures a set of standards that reduces manual intervention and
in addition to saving the hardware costs, this approach doesn’t decision making (which often results in data being placed on a
require more floor space and associated data center and energy higher tier of storage than needed). Standardization includes
costs. IBM storage virtualization can improve utilization up to policies for correct size, initial class of service and management
30 percent across both IBM and non-IBM storage, while overtime. It also addresses the storage request process, stream-
improving administrator productivity. lining it and continuously driving these standards and policies
into the request and provisioning process.
IBM’s patent-pending intelligent storage service catalog (ISSC)
Over the next decade:
promotes more efficient storage allocation and governance
(“supply and demand”) by establishing standards for storage
• The number of servers (virtual and physical) worldwide
will grow by a factor of 10. consumption that can be used to optimize provisioning, backup,
• The amount of information managed by enterprise data replication and archiving.
centers will grow by a factor of 50.
• The number of files the data center will have to deal with Simplifying the request by asking the right business-oriented
will grow by a factor of 75 or more. questions up front in the process, and using established standards
in the balance, helps drive more cost-effective data management
Meanwhile, the number of IT professionals in the world overtime. End users are no longer asked to specify the many
will grow by a factor of less than 1.5 1 parameters associated with each storage request: Array, disk
size and type, RAID configuration, stroked drives, and so on.

6. 6 A blueprint for smarter storage management
Instead of asking the storage user to define the specific require- is sometimes difficult. Use of a storage service catalog helps
ments, the questions are structured to drive the conversation reduce or eliminate over-provisioning at the Tier 1 level by
toward purpose: What are you trying to accomplish? What kind using preset standards that permit the use of less expensive
of data are you creating? This is easy for the requesters, because tiers during the request stage.
they know if they are creating, for instance, emails, video files,
images, user documents, or transactional databases or develop- Figure 4 illustrates this approach as used in a smarter storage
ment code. They require storage for the purpose of housing environment. During an ISSC engagement, data is categorized
data. That’s important, because each client has unique business into specific types and dropped into the correct “bucket.”
requirements for each type of data; but all of those data types Policies and other criteria are used to size and place the data
are relatively standard across any business. at the correct tier. Later in the lifecycle of the data, it might
be archived, saved to tape or deleted from storage entirely as
By defining and codifying business value and requirements for its aged importance suggests.
data once, then mapping these requirements to infrastructure,
data types can be used over and over to properly request storage
and manage storage demand.
The intelligent storage service catalog:
●● Optimizes and simplifies storage requests to help reduce
over-provisioning and the need for highly skilled personnel
●● Enables more consistent storage processes and governance
by defining standards and policies
●● Offers policy-based storage management to enable and
Use policies, analytics and automation to size
enhance information lifecycle management and place data onto correct tiers at the request
●● Lays a foundation for automation
The concept of defining policies and parameters once, then Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Archive Tape
reusing them for all projects, instead of defining at the beginning
of every request for service is at the core of IBM’s smarter
storage management. Utilization of existing storage is shown
to increase as much as 50 percent with correct size and place- Use policies, analytics and automation
ment. In addition, provisioning is more efficient and delivers to move data as it changes value
requested storage in less time than with traditional processes,
thus reducing or eliminating the tendency to over-provision.
Archive Tape
Because adding storage is perceived to be relatively affordable
as part of an overall IT budget, the tendency of vendors has
Figure 4: Predetermined policies for the management of data are key to the
been to propose Tier 1 solutions even when it is not specifically ILM concept and can increase storage utilization up to 50 percent.
necessary. In these cases, migration to lower tiers (rebalancing)

7. IBM Global Technology Services 7
Developing the intelligent storage service catalog manner. This allows a business to achieve operational efficiency
To develop the intelligent storage service catalog, IBM works and to reduce labor cost and risk. IBM is focused on all of these
with the client’s storage managers, architects and subject matter aspects of automation.
experts to:
For intelligent automation, IBM’s capabilities leverage
●● Replace manual allocation decisions with standardized IBM Research-driven analytics for policy creation and automa-
policies. The IBM team develops and enables the use of tion. Beginning with the data types defined in the catalog, user
predefined requirements and architectures with respect to input is simplified. At this point, the IBM team has determined
storage demand and data management. The goal is to make the correct size and tier on which to place the data.
it possible for the customer to “Define once, execute
repeatedly.” In the next step—and this is another area in which IBM capabili-
●● Break down and evaluate the value of the data types to ties differ from other storage management models—the intelli-
the business. A representative set of applications are broken gent storage placement manager (ISPM) uses historical and
down into holistic data types. The team captures business current performance data to automatically configure and provi-
requirements or key performance indicators for these data sion on most cost- or performance-effective storage devices.
types. Looking at applications holistically through common ISPM initially analyzes the disk pools of a respective tier and
types of data and defining requirements formally once are intelligently and automatically provisions storage on the most
unique to the IBM approach. effective storage devices. ISPM can provision, de-provision
●● Define a matching catalog of services and technologies. and create volumes and virtual disks and do host mapping.
The client works with the IBM team to design business
request logic to change the way storage is requested, making Another IBM Research-developed technology, intelligent stor-
it purpose driven. age tier manager (ISTM) recommends best migration targets
●● Simplify user requests so that type and quantity of data is and windows overtime as a function of workload and access
the only input provided by the requester. This framework requirements. ISTM analyzes and balances performance and
allows the IBM team to standardize storage provisioning and cost throughout the life of data. For instance, highly accessed
engender a business valuation of data into data management data is “cached” on high performance storage when needed,
from inception until disposal. and rarely accessed or old data is archived on cheaper storage
as it loses value to the business.
Essential element #3: Intelligently automate data
movement and decision making across the data center. These patent-pending analytic tools create an environment that
Automation, with respect to storage management, can occur in is responsive to the business value of the data. Data placement
several ways. A data type-based request results in streamlined is not only workload optimized when it is new but across its
and purpose-driven storage request workflow automation. lifecycle according to the business rules associated with the data.
Intelligent automation assesses the existing environment to
ensure the storage environment grows in a workload-optimized

8. 8 A blueprint for smarter storage management
Create a responsive, business Standardize storage Automate data movement
oriented infrastructure. usage and process. and decision making.
Goal: Lower overall cost of storage Goal: Minimize reactive work and Goal: Achieve operational efficiency,
while preserving flexibility. custom solutions while freeing-up and reduce labor cost and risk
highly skilled resources. through intelligent automation.
HOW?
• Implement a virtualized multi-tier HOW? HOW?
infrastructure. • Standardize the storage request • Automate storage request workflow.
• Deploy thin provisioning and process to reduce planning and • Automate storage provisioning and
de-duplication. delivery time. workload analysis.
• Standardize and operationalize • Automate tier movement within a
provisioning by data type. storage array.
• Correctly size and place data (on • Automate policy-driven tier
the right tier) from the start. movement across arrays.
Figure 5: The dashed line around the infrastructure arrow (left) and standardization arrow (center) indicates that these steps can happen either simultaneously
or serially as dictated by the needs of the organization. Together they lay the foundation for intelligent automation, as indicated in the arrow to the right.
The bottom line: Labor and infrastructure In a traditional storage implementation scenario, the storage
savings architects and the requestors (typically application architects)
The implementation costs for a storage project vary widely meet several times to capture all of the business and storage
depending on the amount of automation involved at the coordi- requirements for a given project. By contrast, under smarter
nation and execution layers. In IBM’s own experience with both storage management, storage requirements, services and tech-
internal projects and client deployments, standardization alone nologies are pre-defined, allowing the application owners to
can reduce the effort by 50 percent. Automation can reduce simply select data types from the catalog, and the rest is driven
execution hours by as much as 90 percent. to standardized solutions downstream.

9. IBM Global Technology Services 9
In a recently conducted two-stage pilot for a client, IBM used
research-developed tools to automatically rebalance five tera- In 2009, the National Football League (NFL), the largest
bytes of data based on administrator policies. The result was that professional American football league in the world, ap-
a two-to-three-day process was reduced to two to three hours. proached IBM to help reduce its overall IT infrastructure
In stage two, IBM automatically moved 57 terabytes of data expense while enhancing storage capabilities.
overnight, with no failures. This right-tiering initiative currently
produces US$21,000 per month in savings by using lower-tiered The IBM storage and data services team provided the
storage instead of higher tiers. Based on this client’s enterprise intelligent storage service catalog (ISSC) solution. The
total storage volume of 600 terabytes, the savings could be IBM team performed a business impact analysis, built the
extended to US$2.6 million a year at full implementation. request logic behind the process and then helped to deliver
a storage catalog framework that streamlines the request
process from NFL departments and teams. Once integrated
IBM can help into a service request tool, the ISSC can save many hours
IBM has a long history in information management. Today, of time for the IT organization when responding to storage
IBM continues to be a leader in information lifecycle manage- requests and will also enable the IT department to recover
ment, offering comprehensive solutions that drive business its storage costs through an automated charge-back system.
results and encompass complementary hardware, software and The standard practices implemented by the IBM team can be
services. IBM storage systems, with enterprise-class disk and tape adhered to regardless of the storage vendor.
storage tiers, offer best-in-class virtualization and drive increased
return on investment. IBM Research is developing significant The storage catalog service and the cost-recovery system,
designed by IBM, will allow the league’s management team to
new ILM tools that will provide IBM an end-to-end approach—
better understand and monitor the volume and worth of the
hardware, software and services solutions—unequaled in the
storage services provided to the league’s departments and
marketplace. Additionally, IBM has patent-pending ILM
customers. The cost-recovery tool quantifies the expense of
accelerators that deliver proven, repeatable techniques for the storage services provided by the NFL’s IT department,
optimizing storage and information management environments. allocating those expenses back to the groups that use storage.
Finally, IBM software has the capacity to enable end-to-end The league’s catalog application will be integrated into a
management featuring advanced virtualization, orchestration, service request management tool and is being used as a
automation and robust information management capabilities. model for additional cost-recovery initiatives.
As an added benefit, IBM elevated the role of IT within the
league by providing tangible benefits, cost savings opportuni-
ties, and enhanced user services, as well as the charge-back
system for storage usage.

10. 10 A blueprint for smarter storage management
Sprint—owner and operator of two wireless communications IBM helped Sprint identify potential storage efficiency
networks and an internet backbone—wanted to develop an improvements, proposing a storage architecture built around
information lifecycle framework that included categorization a set of service classes and storage tiers to be enabled by
and retention capabilities. In doing so, Sprint needed a recommended key technologies and tools. IBM consultants
methodology and roadmap for information storage and developed a data and information lifecycle framework that
deployment—in short, a system that would help it meet includes the categorization of information and the time period
regulatory, legal and business standards of information for retention. IBM also built a Data-Information-Functionality-
retention. Information accessibility and availability were Usability matrix for network data and information; architected
important, as were the framework’s alignment with overall a high-level storage infrastructure; provided a methodology
business operations and strategic goals. and roadmap for information retention and data lifecycle
management; and generated a business case that highlighted
Sprint’s existing hardware and software technologies the potential financial impact of implementing IBM’s
were insufficient for the job. Outdated hardware limited recommendations.
the company’s ability to store data efficiently. Software
in use proved inadequate to manage the storage. Partnering with IBM, Sprint has begun revamping its informa-
tion lifecycle architecture to meet regulatory standards and
Sprint partnered with IBM to develop a solution. The IBM team business goals. In doing so, the company hopes to realize an
leveraged best-of-breed practices and methodologies ROI of up to 117 percent.
available through IBM Information Lifecycle Management
(ILM) services. In doing so, the consulting capabilities of
ILM Lifecycle Management—Integrated ILM Services and
Information Lifecycle Management—Archiving and Retention
Services proved valuable.

11. IBM Global Technology Services 11
For more information
IBM is of course experiencing the same big data challenges To learn more about how IBM can help you derive maximum
as its customers, with similar increased demands on existing business value through storage optimization, please contact your
storage infrastructure. Several initiatives are currently in prog- IBM marketing representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit
ress to bring costs into better alignment with the total IT spend. the following website: ibm.com/services
First, an archiving initiative was undertaken to address the
Tier 1 storage growth of 30 percent per year. A highly scal-
able and reliable file system service was developed to enable
archiving to the lowest tier, resulting in an estimated savings
of US$2.1 million a year. Second, consolidation of backup and
block storage has helped reduce costs, increase utilization,
and cut provisioning time from months to days, for an
estimated annual savings of US$50 million a year.
Future initiatives include enablement of self-service provision-
ing for the storage cloud and automated policy-based tiering
for email and other data.

12. Please Recycle
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