SNUG Survey Says: Data Growth Number One Challenge Facing Backup and Recovery Pros; Dealing With Internal Management Issues Number Two

StorageNetworking.org Also Marks Third Anniversary by Announcing Major Milestones: 34 Storage Networking User Groups (SNUGs) Worldwide, 4,000 Participants and 200 SNUG Meetings Supported

SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–According to a recent survey of StorageNetworking.org Initiative Storage Networking User Group (SNUG) participants, data growth is the most challenging aspect of managing their organizations’ backup and recovery operation by an almost 2-to-1 margin over internal management issues and operational complexity. In response to an open-ended question, 29% of survey respondents indicated that explosive data growth, which was often coupled with shrinking backup and recovery windows, presented their single greatest challenge.

In the number two spot, 15% of respondents indicated that their greatest challenge was dealing with internal management issues, such as getting sufficient budget allocated, aligning budget levels with customer expectations, policy creation, defining data ownership, classifying data and dealing with internal politics in general. 15% of respondents also saw operational complexity as their biggest challenge. This included issues such as backup software ease of use, inadequate management software for heterogeneous environments, and, more frequently, internal factors like having multiple operating systems, geographical diversity, rapid change, varying requirements between departments and a lack of coordination between sites. System reliability issues such as media quality, backup platform stability and accurate reporting of backup errors also registered strongly among survey participants at 13%.

“Interestingly, compliance was mentioned by only a couple of respondents as their number one challenge,” says ISIC Industry Relations Director Ron Durbin. “Respondents rightly seemed to be focused on their day-to-day challenges. Data growth is an ongoing issue with all corporations, but a surprising number of respondents indicated that dealing with internal management issues was an even greater challenge for them.” Some additional survey finding include:

• Nearly half of all respondents had no storage outages over the past 12 months.

• Among those that had experienced an outage, two-thirds of all respondents indicated their recovery times met their organizations’ recovery time objectives (RTOs).

• Tape is still the primary recovery mechanism for the majority of respondents.

• When asked which classes of backup and recovery technologies participants are interested in learning more about, 48% said continuous data protection, 42% said virtual tape libraries, 36% said IP-based SAN extension replication, 33% said wide area files services and 30% said data de-duplication.

This anonymous online survey was conducted between October 12 and October 20, 2006, and it was participated in by 359 respondents — 64% of whom identified themselves as storage end users, 13% as systems integrators and 13% as storage vendors.

In conjunction with this survey announcement, the ISIC is also pleased to announce that its StorageNetworking.org Initiative has successfully completed its third year of operation and is experiencing exceptional growth. Among the initiative’s recent milestones:

• StorageNetworking.org now supports a network of 34 Storage Networking User Groups (SNUGs) worldwide (with 27 in the U.S. and Canada; three in Australia; and two in India).

• There are 145 local SNUG founders volunteering their time to enable themselves and others to learn more about storage technology.

• There are more than 4,000 SNUG mailing list subscribers, half of whom are storage users.

• Since October 2003, the initiative has supported more than 200 local SNUG meetings, enabling thousands of data management professionals to exchange information with their peers and other knowledge experts in a vendor-neutral, education-focused environment.

StorageNetworking.org is a university-based, non-profit initiative whose mission is to assess and address the educational needs of data storage technology users. It is an open community of practice that is participated in by thousands of data management professionals, irrespective of affiliation. In addition to supporting the SNUGs, the initiative manages an online resource portal to provide access to industry-specific educational opportunities and advocates strongly for the expansion of university-based educational offerings focused on data storage topics.

At a time when many trade associations are shrinking, StorageNetworking.org has more than doubled in size over the past 15 months. “We now have over 4,000 individuals subscribed to the various SNUG mailing lists, where we only had about 1700 in the spring of 2005,” says Durbin. “What’s more exciting than the raw numbers, however, is who is participating. While the initiative is open to anyone interested in learning more about data storage technology, in our most recent SNUG member survey 49% of 581 respondents identified themselves as storage or systems managers/administrators, IT management and senior IT management at what the industry would call end user companies. We call them ‘storage practitioners,’ and our guiding principal is to help them become better at their jobs through vendor-neutral educational activities.”

The SNUG member survey also indicated that 15% of initiative participants work for storage development companies and 14% work for value-added resellers or systems integrators. “We have a very unique and heterogeneous mix in our community,” says Durbin, “and that enables us to do some interesting work from the ISIC side of the house. For example, the ISIC’s recent research papers examining the often misunderstood concept of ‘Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)’ were greatly enhanced by initiative participants from all industry segments who contributed through interviews and an online survey. And this recent backup and recovery survey provides us with a whole new set of data for ISIC analysis.”

The StorageNetworking.org Initiative was launched in October of 2003 with six initial SNUGs, 50 participants and the support of a single sponsor — the Storage Networking Industry Associations (SNIA). “To have been at this for three years is a testament to all of the volunteer SNUG Founders who have contributed their time and energy to supporting the local user groups,” says Durbin. “It is also a testament to this industry and the corporations that have stepped up to support the initiative financially.”

The ISIC is one of 25 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Industry Centers at leading universities across the country. The StorageNetworking.org Initiative is funded through foundation grants and charitable gifts to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Current sponsors include the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Hewlett-Packard, McDATA, Computer Associates, Symantec, EMC Corporation, Trainer Communications, FalconStor Software, Servergraph, NeoPath Networks, Diogenes Labs, Abtech Systems, Storage magazine, InfoStor magazine, and Byte and Switch.

ISIC
Ron Durbin,               858-534-4034       
Director of StorageNetworking.org
rdurbin@ucsd.edu