The real challenge begins now

When it came to Storage, you were preoccupied with deciding on storage architectures, protocols, media/storage devices. And as if these weren't enough, you had to cope with data explosion, data corruption/loss and interoperability issues. But now when your storage setup is up and running, you sit back in ease, but have a nagging worry at the back of your mind. Is there something more I have to do?

At this juncture, I'd like to ask you: How well is your data storage managed? Have you backed that up with a policy?
You've probably made huge investments in storage systems and your enterprise data is neatly stored on NAS filers or RAID systems. But how quickly can an end user, say a manager in accounts, access this data? He doesn't care about the type of NAS filer you've deployed or the type of protocols it employs to make data accessible.

That's why we chose to focus on Storage Management in this issue. The stories talk about the challenges in storage management and tell you how to cope. Vendors, analysts and IT managers in end user companies offer their views on the goal of storage management and what a storage solution should include.

As mentioned earlier, one of the issues with storage is interoperability. Within the industry itself, people can't agree on standards and even before certain standards can be ratified, new ones pop up. So how does an IT manager deal with this? That's another issue we cover here.

V.K. Ramani, President-IT, UTI Bank sums it up well. He says, "There may be many emerging technologies that promise better features and manageability, but it is not necessary to move to it just because it's there. Storage is still seen as one of the less glamorous aspects of IT management and it's difficult to generate adequate excitement for claiming enhanced IT budgets. However, the IT manager should be in a position to put forward a business case in view of its importance for data management, which essentially is the key to availability of information that cannot be ignored by the organization."

Itanium 2
The Tech Update section in this issue is a follow up to our March 2002 cover story, 'The 64-bit Question: Will Enterprises bite the bait?' Back in March we wondered what strategies Intel had to establish itself in the high-end enterprise server space. After all, this space had long been dominated by those who manufactured proprietary RISC/Unix systems.

Intel made an entry into this segment last year with the launch of the first generation Itanium processor, but few companies came forward to buy Itanium systems. By the time Intel launched Itanium 2 in July 2002, it put together a compelling strategy to sell more Itanium 2 systems, and increase market share for high-end enterprise servers.

Our correspondent visited Intel's Asia Pacific HQ and grilled their product managers. After three months of research and analysis we were very clear about Intel's strategies. So read on to find out how Intel plans to conquer the high-end 64-bit computing space.