Enterprise End Users Lead the Way In SAN Adoption

High-end storage is a likely focus for business-savvy solution providers this year, particularly in the areas of storage area networks (SANs) and network-attached storage (NAS). But what kinds of applications do these storage systems--SAN in particular--support?

According to a third-quarter 2000 Gallup poll of 400 SAN companies conducted for Reality Research & Consulting, Jericho, N.Y., e-commerce is emerging as a top application among early adopters of SANs.

In fact, among end-user businesses currently using SANs, nearly half are deploying e-commerce applications on SANs now.

And it's the bigger businesses with larger budgets and more data to manage that are leading the way: Fifty-nine percent of enterprise organizations that employ SAN solutions are rolling out e-commerce on these systems, compared with just 36 percent of midsize firms doing the same.

The findings indicate that big businesses have the most to gain by leveraging SANs for online transactions.

The Net of SANs
Not coincidentally, Internet players have been the fastest to plug in e-commerce applications. As the growth of e-commerce and enterprise resource planning systems strain data-storage infrastructures, IT managers with the widest installed base of products are scrambling to keep up with demand for storage.

Among the Internet companies polled, more than three-fourths are deploying e-commerce on SANs. In all, 10 percent of SAN end-user businesses--defined as those that use or plan to use SAN solutions within 12 months--describe their primary activity as Internet/Web site development.

The only two vertical markets with higher SAN penetration are

government and manufacturing. Half of all end users in manufacturing and one-quarter of those in government are launching electronic commerce on SANs.

Knowing who's using SAN technology and how they're using it can lead the way for savvy solution providers to target new customers with the right storage solutions.

SAN Solutions
Disaster recovery is a primary reason why end users are choosing to deploy SAN solutions. The poll found IT managers scoring disaster recovery an average 4.4 on a 5-point importance scale. Equally important is the avoidance of unscheduled downtime, followed by storage consolidation. Other major drivers include file sharing and business continuity services.

Not surprising, enterprise companies assign greater importance than midsize firms do to all three--disaster recovery, downtime avoidance and storage consolidation--reflecting that large businesses have more sizable storage infrastructures to protect.

Looking ahead through the third quarter of 2001, three out of four companies say they plan to purchase backup servers, NAS and application servers. Almost as many expect to buy SAN storage software and SAN network-management software.

These findings are consistent with Reality's 1999 SAN study, in which NAS and backup servers led product purchases.

The Future of SANs
The largest end users will continue to drive SAN adoption, as evidenced by the fact that more enterprise businesses plan to acquire backup servers and application servers than do midsize companies.

Reality's purchasing forecast provides the latest evidence that SANs are a focal point for IT acquisition schemes. One in four IT buyers nationwide incorporated SANs into their purchasing strategies in 2000, according to a Reality online survey of 5,880 IT managers.

Specifically, 24 percent of IT respondents approved, specified, recommended or influenced the purchase of SAN products, services and/or technologies at their organizations last year.

Interestingly, SAN inroads are most apparent at businesses using RAID, which increases performance and/or provides fault tolerance. It's telling that more than half of IT managers at companies using RAID report SANs are part of their IT purchasing strategy.

Getting inside the minds of IT decision-makers will help you develop informed sales strategies. Going forward in 2001, SAN is a good sell for solution providers with enterprise clients, and can provide them with a lucrative sales opportunity and a way to get their foot in the door with new clients as well.