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- [Presenter] So let's talk about
understanding storage requirements.
First thing you need to understand
is that it's all about the growth.
Basically, as you grow your business,
you're going to spin off more data,
but also other things such as binary stuff,
such as images and multimedia files and videos
and things like that,
depending on how your business is going to be structured.
So assume exponential growth.
Assume that the curve is going to be very steep
and up to the right
as you select your storage providers
and understand the capabilities of them,
whether it's hardware, whether it's a cloud-base.
Data is the big one.
So data growth, in terms of the amount of data
that we're going to store and maintain,
is going to typically explode
if you're a typical Global 2000 company.
The reason is we're using data for analysis.
We're centralizing data.
We have many versions of the same data.
We have data warehouses, data marts,
and use of big data systems, things like that.
So the more systems that are spinning off information,
we have both devices and people
and things that are spinning off scads of information,
then the more storage you're going to need.
Files.
So we have to maintain file systems
and files that exist on file systems.
They could be binary files as big as a terabyte,
or they could be very small text files.
They have to be maintained, stored,
organized, backed up, managed.
Multimedia data: video, voice, images,
all those things take up huge amounts of storage.
We all know that when we run out of storage
on our laptops or on our phones
that deleting videos and pictures
are the easiest way to get the storage back.
And other stuff.
So we have structured and unstructured data
that we're dealing with.
And we're talking about structured data sometimes.
And so structured data could be any number
of different types of information.
It could be PDF files.
It could be PowerPoint presentations.
It could be other things
that really haven't been considered data in the past.
But they're things that needed to be stored and managed
and called through
as we understand our business better
by understanding the data that's innate
or native to the business.
Text.
We have lots of texts, lots of documents,
lots of information that has to be managed.
Not only is it a good idea to manage it
on behalf of the business and the end-users,
but in many instances, there are legal requirements.
We have to have systems that are maintained data
that's maintained for a long period of time,
you know, based on legal issues and Sarbanes-Oxley
and other requirements and other areas of compliance,
including HIPAA in the healthcare industry,
things in the financial industry as well.
So the first thing is focused on capacity.
So what does our capacity need to be over time?
The nice thing about cloud computing
is you really don't have to guess at a number.
In other words, we don't have to come up with something
we think it's going to be in two years, four years, six years.
We can leverage cloud-based systems.
And they're only going to charge us for what we're leveraging,
what capacity we're using.
However, it's still a bill that has to be paid.
And therefore, it's still important
that we understand how much money it's going to cost
over a long period of time.
Focus on the need.
So understand how people
are going to consume storage volumes.
So application developers
are going to consume storage very differently
than the accounting group very differently
than the manufacturing group.
And having a good understanding
in terms of what consumption patterns
of storage are going to be
for the particular areas in the business
is absolutely imperative.
We saw in the previous example,
when we allocated storage,
we had different sorts of platforms
in different sorts of volumes that we needed to mount.
And you're going to find
that the systems are going to be completely different
from one organization to the next.
And that even though you're running on a cloud provider,
such as Amazon Web Services,
they're able to accommodate the differences
by basically serving up different platforms
in different types of storage to meet your needs.
Focus on usage patterns.
So how are people leveraging this storage
in ways that are going to be basically generalized patterns
that we can put in categories?
So we talked earlier about developers use it one way,
HR uses it another way,
inventory uses it a different way and things like that.
Well, what are the patterns of use?
In other words,
what times of day are they leveraging the storage systems?
What kind of backup do they need?
What kind of other infrastructure they need
in place to support their storage?
And you do that by not necessarily trying to resolve
the requirements of every individual
who's leveraging your storage system,
but the patterns of use that are basically emerging
from all the individuals and all the applications
and all the other resources that are leveraging storage.
So this is an example
of Microsoft Azure operational insights.
And this allows you to basically monitor a storage systems.
But as a cool feature,
it allows you to project storage as well.
So we can look at what we're using now
and the patterns of use.
And therefore, project into the future
what that use looks like
in terms of capacity stories that you need.
So as we're looking to improve
and enhance our storage systems that exist in the cloud,
this sort of tool,
and there's other tools like it for AWS and Google,
allow you to, in essence, look at where we're taking storage
based on use of compute cycles, use of a memory,
other based systems;
number of users, number of applications,
and what that looks like.
And just basically make some good predictions
in terms of what storage capacity is required going forward
into the future.
So a couple things to remember: it's about the math.
So when we talk about storage,
it's very much like when we talk about real estate,
location, location, location.
When we talk about storage,
it's capacity, capacity, capacity.
So what can we do to figure out
what the capacity is going to be
based on the current patterns of consumption,
based on the projected growth of the business,
based on where things are going
from a technological point of view.
Chances are it's going to be growing, not contracting.
But the rate of growth
or the capacity that you're going to need
should be determined by mathematics,
and by you understanding
that it's about understanding the patterns of growth
and growing those patterns into the future.
Leverage your tools, like the one we just saw,
but you don't have to necessarily rely on those tools.
Those tools are basically aiding
and helping you move forward.
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