Tart has recently started using Computer Associates’ SRM software in an effort to better manage storage capacity on his SANs. He says that although he’s "very early" in implementation, his staff has already identified 3 terabytes of unused storage hiding out in the company’s 50-odd terabytes of storage. "We’re going to have to continually better manage our networked capacity, and that’s going to require more than just manpower," he says. "We’ll need automated tools to get it done."

The (Future) Lord of the Storage Jungle

How will the CIO know when the storage jungle has been mastered? Duplessie thinks the future will look a lot like this: IT will be able to analyze storage usage at a granular level, accounting for storage needs by department or line of business. "Today, we can’t delineate between storing Steve the Moron’s goofy .mpeg download and an Oracle database transaction," says Duplessie.

In addition, IS departments will become storage service providers. As companies begin to stratify data by quality and apportion storage accordingly, CIOs will be able to work out quality and service agreements with each department. That will allow the CIO to attach a monetary value to storage services and identify storage transgressors.

The big goal for companies is to formulate and automate storage policies. According to Duplessie, policy is a hot term these days. The idea is to create a corporate template of policies and procedures about storage and commit them to a rules engine that will then monitor storage and enforce the rules. Such rules can stratify different levels of users and assign certain levels of access to storage, as well as backup schedules and data retention periods. Storage policies will also help get rid of data that’s just wasting space, says Duplessie. They’ll even weed out the redundant data storage practices and make them, one might say, tomorrow’s white elephant.