ILM is the future of storage (or so we're told). But what is it? How do you get it? The details may still be a bit sketchy but that doesn't necessarily mean you can afford to put considerations to the side.
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Contents 
Introduction
The long road to ILM
E-mail is the word
More than just messages
Learning to let go
Screensound builds an ILM
10 things to know about ILM |
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The problem extends across the entire storage industry, which had, in recent years, enjoyed a strong resurgence on the back of the ongoing explosion in enterprise data and the healthy consulting and technology fees that accompanied once-mystical storage area networks (SANs).
Commoditisation, however, has taken its toll: storage continues to decline, and even SANs -- whose early reliance on expensive Fibre Channel gear once meant cozy margins for resellers -- have become cheaper after ratification of standards like iSCSI and iFCP, which let Fibre Channel devices communicate using dirt-cheap Gigabit Ethernet equipment over standard network cabling.
With SANs now a relatively unremarkable, and therefore less profitable, way of consolidating enterprise data, the storage industry has been on the prowl for the Next Big Thing. By all accounts, the vendors have found it in ILM -- it's impossible to have a conversation with a storage hardware provider, or one of the many companies providing storage management solutions without it being mentioned.
Most of ILM's components are still evolving, with storage companies assuming stewardship of the sector and buying fiercely in recent years to bulk out their offerings. Many of those acquisitions are only now bearing fruit in the form of loosely integrated products often bearing little relation to competing offerings. Conflicting vendor messages, lack of standards, or even consistent product sets, and market positioning have muddied the ILM picture so much that it's still not clear who can describe it adequately and who can't.
"ILM has been identified, especially by the storage industry, as being where they're going to get their income from," says Andrew Manners, director of network storage with HP. "There's dramatic marketing going on which isn't necessarily matched to capabilities. It shouldn't be a storage play, but should be a consultancy led play. Unless [storage vendors are] working with some of the market consultancies, they don't have a play."
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