Storage UPDATE--Compliance Requirements Drive Infrastructure--August 16, 2004

1. Commentary

- Compliance Requirements Drive Major Storage Infrastructure Changes

2. News and Views

- HP, Certance Outline DAT Roadmap

- NETGEAR and Western Digital Team Up on NAS Storage

3. New and Improved

- Blue Laser Storage Holds Up to 23GB

- Address Email Archival and Compliance Requirements

- Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt!

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==== 1. Commentary ====

by Elliot King, [email protected]

Compliance Requirements Drive Major Storage Infrastructure Changes First came Tyco and Enron, then Sarbanes-Oxley. The federal regulations imposed in the wake of the corporate corruption scandals of the past few years have left the front pages of newspapers to become front-burner concerns on the corporate IT agenda. Corporate managers frequently give lip service to the demands that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will put on the corporate storage infrastructure. However, Sarbanes-Oxley is only the tip--although admittedly a very large tip--of a huge regulatory compliance iceberg that could force a major realignment of the storage infrastructure in companies of all sizes.

According to a study by Gartner, large and midsized companies will spend $2 billion through 2005 just to become Sarbanes-Oxley-compliant. Some estimates are that companies will spend $6 billion by 2007 on the storage infrastructure necessary to accommodate all relevant regulations.

Those numbers are so big for one simple reason. Enterprises will have to comply with a lot of rules and regulations, and those rules and regulations have a lot of information associated with them. Sarbanes-Oxley, which takes effect in November, requires organizations to retain all relevant audit documentation for 7 years. The Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) regulation SEC 17 CFR 240, which came into effect in May, mandates that all communication between stockbrokers and their clients, including email and Instant Messaging (IM) messages, be retained for 3 years and be easily accessible for the first 2 years. And the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which takes effect in April 2005, requires that all patient information, authorizations, policies and procedures, and contracts with business associates be retained for at least 6 years. Furthermore, the information must be stored in a robust data center that provides minimum guaranteed uptime and very high security.

And those regulations are just the beginning. The Enterprise Strategy Group (formerly the Enterprise Storage Group) estimates that as many as 15,000 laws and regulations have IT compliance components. Although may of these laws and regulations target large companies, small organizations will also feel pressure as compliance best practices emerge.

A storage infrastructure that can meet compliance mandates has five characteristics:

1. It must be able to protect the integrity of the individual records for the entire retention period. Companies must store primary records in a way that prevents them from being altered and must be able to demonstrate that records haven't been altered.

2. Primary records must be accessible within a reasonable period of time.

3. Companies need to maintain a duplicate set of records for disaster recovery. The disaster recovery duplicate is typically more than simply a backup copy. It should be maintained offsite and retain all elements of the original records.

4. A migration strategy must address what happens when media, storage subsystems, or applications become obsolete.

5. An audit trail must exist. Companies have to be able to document a record's chain of custody and track all events that could delete, migrate, modify, or take any other action related to the record.

Building storage infrastructures to fulfill those requirements is burdensome. But not surprisingly, the challenge has already led to some interesting innovations. In July, both Quantum and Sony announced new write once, read many (WORM) tape technology that can help meet compliance requirements. Quantum's contribution is DLTIce, a tape drive for the midrange market. DLTIce uses a standard Super DLT II media cartridge that can't be overwritten or reformatted but to which data can be appended. DLTice integrates with DLTSage, Quantum's tape management software, for archive tape verification, tamper verification, and time and date signature.

For its part, Sony debuted WORM functionality as part of its next-generation AIT-4 technology. WORM tape technology offers several advantages over the market-leading optical alternatives. "It is fast, simple, and easy to implement," said Steve Berens, senior director of product marketing and strategy at Quantum. WORM applications could ultimately represent 25 percent of the overall tape market, according to Brett Schechter, senior national manager of tape technologies at Sony.

Although innovative products will help, meeting compliance standards will require more than just new technology. It will require that companies of all sizes train end users and overhaul processes. Furthermore, companies now need to seriously address regulatory compliance. Not only does it help companies manage themselves better, but it can also keep corporate executives out of jail.

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==== 2. News and Views ====

by Keith Furman, [email protected]

HP, Certance Outline DAT Roadmap

HP and Certance have extended their relationship to work together on the DAT data protection technology open standard. The DAT format targets small to midsized businesses and is used by more than 6 million customers worldwide, according to HP and Certance. As part of their extended relationship, the companies unveiled a product roadmap that runs to 2010. The DAT format faces a crowded playing field as it competes with other tape-based backup formats, such as AIT, DLT, and Linear Tape-Open (LTO), as well as the influx of low-cost disk-based backup systems; the new roadmap aims to keep the format competitive.

HP and Sony introduced the DAT format in 1989. Last year, HP and Certance announced the fifth generation of the format, which is endorsed by all leading system and server manufacturers. Referred to as DAT 72, the updated format has a compressed capacity per cartridge of 72GB and a transfer rate of up to 7MBps. The product roadmap includes three future product generations and calls for increasing compressed capacity to as much as 600GB per cartridge and transfer rates to 32MBps. Future DAT products will be backward compatible with Digital Data Storage (DDS), the format that preceded DAT 72, and with earlier DAT products to help protect customers' investments in the format. For more information about the roadmap and compatible products and details about the open standard, go to the DAT Manufacturers Group Web site. http://www.datmgm.com

NETGEAR and Western Digital Team Up on NAS Storage

Network product manufacturer NETGEAR and hard-drive manufacturer Western Digital (WD) are entering the home and small-business network storage market together. The companies will combine their products to offer a new low-cost Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution. The offering is similar to the NAS solution that Linksys and Maxtor launched earlier this summer. (For more information about the Linksys/Maxtor solution, see "NAS for Small Business," June 2004, http://www.winnetmag.com, InstantDoc ID 43031.) NETGEAR's and WD's effort addresses the growing need for storage in the home environment. Although the solution primarily targets connected homes, it's also attractive to small businesses.

The solution is a co-marketing effort that teams WD's USB 2.0 external hard drives and NETGEAR's Wireless Media Router, which includes a USB 2.0 port that supports external storage devices. The companies offered a rebate deal earlier this month when customers bought the products together at Best Buy and plan to roll out other promotions through resellers next month. Testing by WD's Functional Integrity Testing Lab (FIT Lab) and NETGEAR has certified the compatibility of WD's USB 2.0 external hard drives and FireWire/USB 2.0 Combo external drives with NETGEAR's WGT634U 108Mbps Wireless Media Router.

http://www.netgear.com

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp

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Sarbanes-Oxley: Race to the Finish Line

The deadline is looming for compliance with the final set of Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. Are you ready, or are you still struggling with Section 404 issues? In this free Web seminar, let the experts of Ernst & Young LLP and NetIQ provide you with the tips and techniques required to maintain proper internal control frameworks. Register today!

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==== 3. New and Improved ====

by Jason Bovberg, [email protected]

Blue Laser Storage Holds Up to 23GB

Sony Electronics introduced its branded blue-laser-based Professional Disc for DATA (ProDATA) solution kits. By harnessing the benefits of blue laser technology and advanced optics, Sony's ProDATA drives offer up to 23GB of storage capacity and sustained 11MBps read and 9MBps write transfer speeds on a single-sided optical disc. The ProDATA drives are designed specifically for professional storage applications, such as document and medical imaging, email archiving, enterprise content management, multimedia projects, graphic design, and audio/video (A/V) editing and authoring. The ProDATA lineup includes internal SCSI ($2995), external SCSI ($3299), and external USB 2.0 ($2299) drives. For more information, contact Sony Electronics on the Web.

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Address Email Archival and Compliance Requirements

Computer Associates (CA) has certified C2C Systems' Archive One as interoperable with CA's BrightStor ARCserve Backup. The integrated solution lets you store archives on a vast range of storage media, including Direct Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Area Networks (SANs), DVDs, and write once, read many (WORM) media. For more information, contact C2C Systems on the Web.

http://www.c2c.com

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