Key Performance and Capacity Concerns for Data Storage

Capacity management is responsible for ensuring that the capacity of IT services and the IT infrastructure is able to deliver agreed service level targets in a cost effective and timely manner (ITIL v3). Doing capacity management properly means getting in front of potential capacity related problems before they happen.

Storage is one area of the IT infrastructure that is typically not as transparent as others. It is the epitome of backend infrastructure, the end point where the most critical items in IT exist; when it is not available you are down. 

However, given the shared nature of  storage, being completely down may be a better option than the alternative. The alternative might be chronic intermittent performance problems that are only bad enough to annoy and frustrate customers. It could also be severely under-utilized storage across many terabytes or petabytes of data that go unnoticed and unbilled, but it is getting paid for ultimately out of a budget somewhere.

There are many examples where high impact problems could be evolving in your storage infrastructure hidden from view. The first step in identifying these problems is to implement a sound capacity management process for it. While identifying and preventing potential problems does not receive the glory of firefighting, savvy managers know how valuable it is and recognize its importance.

Join me at my webinar Key Performance and Capacity Concerns for Data Storage April 11 where I’ll be discussing ways to assist the storage administrator in the complex task of managing storage.

http://www.metron-athene.com/services/training/webinars/index.html

Dale Feiste

Principal Consultant