“Don’t buy storage,” Symantec Australia is urging Australian organisations after a poll it commissioned found that Australian companies have been spending huge amounts on storage despite using not much more than half of what they already have. The survey, conducted by Bread & Butter Research in June, polled 251 IT managers and team members in organisations (government and enterprise) with at least 200 staff in Australia. It found they spent an average of more than A$475,000 on storage in 2008 but on average respondents used only 58 percent of their primary storage and About one-quarter rated their storage waste was “a disaster” or said they struggled to utilise the storage they had. Symantec Pacific MD Craig Scroggie notes that less than half are using storage resource management (SRM) tools to help mitigate risks posed by rapid data growth. He reckons that with the “right” storage resource management tools, eight out of 10 Australian businesses could stop buying storage for six months to three years saving up to $1.5 million. Funnily enough, Symantec via its Veritas division just happens to have such software available. Its storage and server management software represents 38 percent of the group’s total revenue. CDN asked Scroggie if the “Don’t Buy Storage” slogan had drawn any return fire from once-friendly major storage vendors such as EMC and NetApp. “We do get a reaction,” Scroggie noted wryly. Just as wryly, he suggested the hardware makers could help the situation by either reducing the cost of their products, or by helping their customers make better use of the equipment they already have. Or just maybe directing them to the possibilities of Veritas, perhaps. |
