Storage Virtualisation | Regal IT

Storage Virtualisation :- Five Tips for better storage forecasting


There are two basic approaches to forecasting: quantitative and qualitative. With storage resource forecasting, it's good practice to use both methods. While using the quantitative and qualitative methods provides great insight into developing a forecast, it's important to be flexible. There are always outside influences and pressures--such as regulatory compliance, mergers and acquisitions, and general economic cycles--that can greatly impact storage resource needs. The following tips will help you develop an accurate forecasting process:
  • Start at the top. Communicate the value of forecasting to senior IT management and the business units. Ask them to sponsor the forecasting initiative; key stakeholders are more likely to actively participate if management endorses the effort.
  • Develop accurate metrics. It's crucial to develop the appropriate forecasting metrics so they're meaningful to all interested parties. Once a forecasting initiative has gained the attention of senior management, meaningful metrics will solidify the value of the initiative for senior managers. Uncertainty about the accuracy of the metrics can undermine credibility and seriously damage a forecasting initiative. It's important to ensure that storage reporting metrics can be generated on a regular basis and without a great deal of effort, so try to automate the process of collecting data and generating reports.
  • Talk to vendors about capacity on demand. A low-risk way to build flexibility into a resource plan is to negotiate a capacity-on-demand buying process. Under such a plan, a vendor installs the maximum capacity gear, but pays only for the capacity used. Capacity on demand makes it easier and faster to add storage capacity by eliminating or reducing setup and configuration time. Vendors are amenable to capacity-on-demand contracts because they improve their chances for additional sales.
  • Incorporate compliance policies. Corporate compliance policies can affect the amount of storage capacity required. Organizations often save information in multiple forms (electronically and on paper), resulting in wasted storage capacity. Corporate compliance policies can address this by defining the types of information to be saved and where it should go.
  • Integrate storage with a single IT capacity-planning initiative. A storage forecasting process should be integrated into a general IT initiative chartered to perform capacity planning for all IT resources, including storage, servers, networking, telecommunications, facilities, head count and so on. It's important to leverage the many activities that contribute to the capacity-planning process, which includes forecasting, budgeting and general business planning. This kind of initiative is usually driven by the CIO or another high-level executive within IT.

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