Data Storage Management Challenges: Page 2 of 2

A daily challenge for enterprise storage resource management, or SRM, that Kochishan sees is the cultural difference between IT storage professionals who work in open, distributed environments and their counterparts in the same shop who work on mainframe computers. "The open systems and mainframe sides of the IT house often don't talk to each other, even though platform integration has been a common theme for a number of years," Kochishan says. "If you're an enterprise with many different computing platforms, this problem is multiplied because now you have islands of people who are managing storage resources within their own areas, and who are often not communicating with each other -- a prerequisite for a comprehensive and all-inclusive storage management strategy."

One way that enterprises can improve both storage and data management is to review on an annual or biannual basis policies for data storage, retention, security, backup, and disaster recovery. Revisiting policies helps people cross-communicate with each other, even if they are working on different computing platforms. It also ensures current compliance with standards, laws, and regulations, which change on a regular basis.

"Annual policy and process reviews give you an opportunity to bring in your applications, your auditing, your storage management and your security people," says Kochishan. "The key is to have everyone align behind the business objectives. Sites should also take advantage of the storage and data management best practices and system capabilities that vendors provide -- and apply it to their overall storage and data management enterprise architecture."

InformationWeek Analytics has published an independent analysis of the challenges around enterprise storage. Download the report here (registration required).