Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Admins: Know Thy Data

For storage capacity to be managed effectively, administrators must know exactly what data is stored on the network and understand the value of it all.

That was the clear sentiment of Computer Associates storage software users on a panel at CA World in Las Vegas this week.

To determine whats on his storage network, Mohamad Alkazaz, IT manager at Newbury, Ohio-based Saint Gobain Crystals, went straight to the source and surveyed 400 users at his manufacturing firm. The results weren’t pretty.

“Sixty-five percent reported they store data to the network but they hardly use it ever again,” Alkazaz says. “So they’re using network resources, but sometimes they don’t go back and verify 'I need this file' or 'I don’t need it.'

“Twenty-eight percent consider the network drive to be their own backup drive, and they started backing up their entire hard drive to the network. And 30 percent store multiple copies of the same file.”

  • 1