7 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research

systems. It is believed that while deciding on adopting an Information System for storing
and disseminating information, decision makers generally do not give much importance to
the nature and kind of storage device that would be used and the decision is normally left
to the vendor of the Information System solution provider. Given that there are various
kinds of storage devices, each with its own set of features and price tag, a conscious
decision to choose the optimum storage device could to some extent affect the
operationality and the feasibility of such information systems.
The objective of this paper is to inform the decision makers about the available storage
devices along with their functionality, so that they are able to take informed decisions with
the respect to the use of storage devices for their information systems.
2. Need for Storage Management
The business environment today requires real time responses to change whether it is new
demand by customers, change in the supply chain or unexpected competitive moves. To a
large extent success in the “on demand” world depends on the ability to leverage
Information Technology (IT). Because IT infrastructures are traditionally built along
functional lines the applications operating systems, database and hardware platform often
fail to communicate effectively. Greater dependence on information means, greater
dependency on storage. Automation of routine storage management tasks can help enable
IT staff to focus on providing better services to users and improved data protection to
shield important information from unforeseen threats and providing greater resilience to
respond to unanticipated events.
Integrated storage is essential to integrate information systems. The traditional model of
storage directly attached to distributed server makes it difficult to share data among host
servers because of networking bottlenecks as well as format and device incompatibilities.
These weak links can make sharing data among host servers difficult. However by
consolidating data into centralized pools of storage we can avoid the pitfalls of the
traditional storage model. But this storage consolidation can also address another critical
aspect of the on demand paradigm, the efficient use of resources. The economics of scale
and simplified administration enabled by centralized storage can help reduce cost and
improve responsiveness to changing demand.
Today it is an age of mission critical, storage intensive applications that with the advent of
Internet and popularization of e-Commerce have forced organizations to provide 24/7 data
availability to their end users. 24/7 world wide data availability ensures that users can
access data at any point of time. This means that storage infrastructure must always be
ready to handle transaction data. Many applications today heavily rely on storage
infrastructure. Some of the storage intensive applications are:
• On-line University
• E-learning
• Data warehouse and data mining system
• Web based e-mail
• Online trading and transaction
• E-commerce transactions
• Multimedia applications
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