Storage UPDATE, October 6, 2003

1. Commentary - Compliance Is the New Y2K

2. News and Views - Storage Networking Groups Increase and Gain Sponsorship - EMC Expands Mid-Tier Storage Products

3. Instant Poll - Results of Previous Poll: Corporate Attitude About Storage - New Instant Poll: How Federal Regulations Affect You

4. Announcements - New White Paper on Exchange 2003 Deployment - Storage Expo 2003, October 15 - 16, 2003, National Hall, Olympia, London

5. Resource - Creating a Volume on a SATA Hard Disk

6. Event - The Mobile & Wireless Road Show Is Coming to Tampa and Atlanta!

7. New and Improved - Back Up and Restore Data - Store 3TB of Data - Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt!

8. Contact Us - See this section for a list of ways to contact us.

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==== 1. Commentary ==== by Elliot King, [email protected]

Compliance Is the New Y2K What drives the development and adoption of new information technology? The easy answer is that somebody, somewhere, sees a better, faster, cheaper way of doing something.

But the easy answer often isn't the only answer. Much of the fuel for the tech bubble of the late 1990s came from the looming Y2K crisis. Remember that? When faced with the question of whether their legacy systems would continue to work correctly when the century turned, many companies decided to simply scrap much of their central computing infrastructure in favor of new enterprise-level applications, thus investing heavily in the database technology and storage systems on which those new applications were based.

Regulatory compliance is the new Y2K. In industry after industry, federal regulatory agencies are establishing stringent rules concerning data retention. Prominent among these new regulations are the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which ensures the privacy of health-care records; US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 17a-4 of the Securities Exchange Act, which controls the retention of e-mail communications; and the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) 21 CFR Part 11, which lays out conditions for the use of electronic signatures.

The US Department of Defense (DOD) also has issued design criteria for electronic records management, and the European Union (EU) has passed rules and regulations concerning management of personal data and medical records. The recently passed Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which attempts to make corporate management more accountable to shareholders and the public, could emerge as the 800-pound gorilla of electronic records management legislation. Experts are still sorting through the implications of Sarbanes-Oxley for data storage.

As a result of such legislation and rules, a huge amount of enterprise data is now subject to regulation. According to a study by the Enterprise Storage Group, the worldwide volume of compliance-related records will increase from 376PB in 2003 to more than 1600PB by 2006--that's an annual growth rate of 64 percent. According to Suresh Vasudevan, senior director of product management at Network Appliance (NetApp), as much as 15 percent of corporate data could become subject to regulation over the next several years.

Although different agencies' regulations vary significantly, they share several elements. First, the regulations generally mandate that specific data must be retained for a defined period of time. Second, they dictate that companies must be able to retrieve information within a specified length of time. Third, and perhaps most significantly, the regulations require that stored data be unalterable and requires companies to be able to prove that the data can't be overwritten or modified.

In the past, write once, read many (WORM) optical technology has been the primary solution for permanent record storage. But data storage companies are now introducing alternative approaches that take into account the real possibility that the data will have to be retrieved quickly and efficiently.

EMC's Centera family of magnetic WORM storage devices for fixed content were among the earliest new products. And just a couple of weeks ago, NetApp announced that several applications partners were using its SnapLock Compliance software, which offers automatic data verification and strong security features designed to meet compliance standards. NetApp announced SnapLock Compliance in May.

The growth of compliance concerns has raised several new considerations for storage administrators. Not only must technology that's designed to meet the regulations work as advertised, but in many cases the regulating agency must approve or validate the solution. For example, in the case of Rule 17a-4, companies must submit their system's specifications to the SEC, which has 90 days to decide whether to allow use of the system.

Moreover, as Vasudevan suggests, companies might opt to use the same storage technology for unregulated data, such as architectural and automotive designs and nonfinancial customer information, that they want to retain in an unalterable format. NetApp recently expanded its SnapLock family of products to cover such applications.

Clearly, like Y2K, compliance issues are forcing companies to rethink their IT infrastructures. This attention to compliance will, at a minimum, put new emphasis on data lifecycle management in the enterprise.

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==== 2. News and Views ==== by Keith Furman, [email protected]

Storage Networking Groups Increase and Gain Sponsorship The Association of Storage Networking Professionals (ASNP), a new association for storage networking users, has launched complete with a mascot and a motto. With 22 chapters worldwide, The ASNP's goal is to "empower and educate users."

"The ASNP will level the playing field between storage networking users and vendors," said Tom Giannetti, director of information services of operations at Home Depot. "There is so much hype in the storage networking market, which leads to a lot of confusion among users making decisions. The ASNP will provide a much-needed resource for the end-user of storage networks."

The association is actively recruiting members for the first chapter meetings, which are scheduled to take place in January 2004. Regular annual dues are $199, but the first 1000 members to join will receive free membership. More information about membership is available at http://www.asnp.org .

In related news, the Information Storage Industry Center (ISIC) at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) has announced that the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has become the founding sponsor of ISIC's StorageNetworking.org initiative. StorageNetworking.org is an independent, university-based initiative whose goal is to help create local and regional storage networking user groups. StorageNetworking.org will also be an online resource portal to storage networking-related resources and information.

StorageNetworking.org's academic advisory board includes the Center for Magnetic Recording Research at UCSD; the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD; the UCSD Extension; the University of Minnesota's Digital Technology Center; Pennsylvania State University's School of Information Sciences and Technology; the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs' Network, Information, and Space Security Center; and the Data Storage Institute's (DSI's) Network Storage Technologies Division at the National University of Singapore.

http://www.asnp.org http://storagenetworking.org

EMC Expands Mid-Tier Storage Product

EMC has expanded its Network Attached Storage (NAS) offerings with the release of new products ranging from NAS gateways to Windows Storage Server 2003 NAS systems. EMC is targeting the new products at the mid-tier networked storage market.

The new offerings include the EMC Celerra NS600GS (a single Data Mover configuration with a price of $63,000) and EMC Celerra NS600G (a dual Data Mover costing $97,000) NAS gateways, which enable integration of NAS functionality into existing EMC CLARiiON CX600 and EMC CLARiiON CX400 Fibre Channel systems; the EMC Celerra NS600S ($114,000 for 1TB configuration), an entry-level single Data Mover NAS device for the EMC Celerra NS600 series; and EMC NetWin 200 ($32,000 for the 500GB configuration), the company's first device to support Microsoft's recently released Windows Storage Server 2003. The NetWin 200 system is based on the CLARiiON CX200 network storage platform. Other vendors in the Windows Storage Server 2003 market include Iomega and EMC partner Dell.

EMC said the release of NetWin 200 won't affect the company's relationship with Dell, which sells its own line of NAS solutions under the PowerVault brand. According to EMC, the company isn't looking to sell its system to the lower end of the Windows Storage Server 2003 market, which Dell targets. EMC also announced support for low-cost ATA disk drives in its EMC Celerra NS600 and EMC Celerra NS600G systems and in its EMC Celerra CNS clustered environments. EMC hopes customers will use the ATA technology for backup-to-disk solutions.

http://www.emc.com

==== 3. Instant Poll ====

Results of Previous Poll: Corporate Attitude About Storage

The voting has closed in the Windows & .NET Magazine Network's Storage Admin Channel nonscientific Instant Poll for the question, "Does your company believe that if backup and disaster recovery plans are in place, there is no need to invest further in storage solutions?" Here are the results from the 11 votes:

36%--My company won't invest beyond our existing plan.

36%--My company is investing beyond our existing plan.

27%--My company hasn't even invested in an initial plan.

(Deviations from 100 percent are due to rounding.)

New Instant Poll: How Federal Regulations Affect You

The current Instant Poll question is, "Have recent federal regulations caused you to change your data-management practices?" Go to the Storage Admin Channel home page and submit your vote for a) Yes, b) Not yet, but I can see it coming, or c) No.

http://www.storageadmin.com

==== 4. Announcements ==== (from Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners)

New White Paper on Exchange 2003 Deployment

In this timely white paper, Microsoft Exchange Server expert Kieran McCorry, from HP's Exchange consulting group, outlines the best options for organizations migrating to Exchange Server 2003. The paper outlines inter- and intraorganizational migration issues and the benefits of server consolidation during deployment. Get your copy today!

http://www.aelita.com/100603storage

Storage Expo 2003, October 15 - 16, 2003, National Hall, Olympia, London

UK's largest dedicated data storage event. Bringing together 3,000 end users and 90 exhibitors with the aim of educating on, and purchasing of, the latest storage solutions. The exhibition represents a key event for any organization challenged with the movement, management, storage, back-up, recovery and archiving of data.

http://www.storage-expo.com/winnet

==== 5. Resources ====

Creating a Volume on a SATA Hard Disk Junior forum member Notoxic boots a system from a 120GB Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk and wants to add an IDE hard disk to the system. The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Disk Management snap-in shows the IDE disk but doesn't let Notoxic create a volume so that the user can format the hard disk and create a partition. Right-clicking the disk shows only three options: Help, Create dynamic disk, and Properties. If you know how Notoxic can create a volume without creating a dynamic disk, visit:

http://www.winnetmag.com/forums/rd.cfm?cid=46&tid=63472

==== 6. Event ==== (brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine)

The Mobile & Wireless Road Show Is Coming to Tampa and Atlanta!

Learn more about the wireless and mobility solutions that are available today, plus discover how going wireless can offer low risk, proven performance, and compatibility with existing and emerging industry standards. Register now for this free, 12-city event!

http://www.winnetmag.com/roadshows/wireless

==== 7. New and Improved ==== by Carolyn Mader, [email protected]

Back Up and Restore Data

HP announced it will offer the Altiris Local Recovery Pro backup and recovery solution on HP Compaq business desktop and notebook PCs. Altiris Local Recovery Pro takes a snapshot of the system and stores the image in compressed form in a protected area on the hard disk. Pricing starts at $20 per license with the purchase of a new HP Compaq business desktop or notebook PC. http://www.hp.com

Store 3TB of Data

Snap Appliance announced that its Snap Server 14000 Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliance is available with as much as 3TB of storage capacity. The Snap Server 14000 uses the Linux-based GuardianOS, which provides Active Directory (AD) integration, snapshot technology, network backup capability, and data replication with server-to-server (S2S) synchronization software. The Snap Server 14000 with 3TB of storage capacity costs $20,995.

http://www.snapappliance.com

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==== 8. Contact Us ====

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