One respondent to a recent IT Manager poll spoke of management directives and software tools the organisation he worked for used to manage files stored on company servers. Compressing files, archiving files on servers after a certain period of time, and allocating each user "personal storage" space on a server were other ways they had managed storage growth.
Phil Sargeant, research director for servers and storage at industry analyst Gartner Asia-Pacific, agrees there are ways Australian companies can educate users about storage, but also believes that it needs to be as easy as possible for the majority of employees.
"We take the view that IT departments and managers should have tools in place so the users don't have to manage it," Sargeant argues. "Obviously the organisation needs to inform the users what the [automatic software] rules are."
However, he admits that initiatives such as implementing quotas on an employee's e-mail box size, and limiting the size of e-mail attachments which are stored can be used to encourage staff to think about what they're storing.
One of the ways some companies are dealing with the issue storage is through hierarchical storage management tools (HSM), Sargeant said. This allows rules to be set, for example if a file has not been accessed for a certain period of time it is then stored on tape.
Nor is the growing volumes of data needing to be stored a small issue for Australian companies. Sargeant estimates that each year Gartner is seeing growth of between 50 and 100 percent in the data that companies must store. This varies between businesses and industry sectors, with some larger enterprises seeing even greater growth in the amount of information they are having to store.
While he thinks some companies get it right, Sargeant still believes that many are still not utilising their storage resources as well as they could. "One of the greatest drivers for storage--since it is increasing--is to put the tools in place to increase the efficiency of that storage," he said. "A lot of asset out there is not being used."
Sargeant also argues that some organisations need to look at different ways of deploying their storage. For example, moving from traditionally using direct-attached storage to other methods such as storage area networks (SANs) or network-attached storage (NAS), using software to automate some functions.
But educating users about storing electronic files isn't always an easy task. As Graham Penn, director of storage research for Asia Pacific at analyst firm IDC points out, every user is completely different in managing their files.
"One size doesn't fit all," Penn argues, warning against generalising about how IT departments can educate users. "Users are having to store more and more data," he said. "Having to do it with no increase in headcounts or budgets [also] represents a challenge in its own right."
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