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For companies that have significantly increased their storage capacity and are now facing unacceptable operating costs due to increased complexity and underutilized resources, a Storage Assessment identifies all of the contributing factors to inefficiencies, poor utilization, performance constraints, and low availability and provides specific recommendations for remediation while minimizing operating costs and maximizing ROI.

Business Need

Companies on average have been doubling their storage capacity every 3-5 years according to Gartner Dataquest.  And while the cost per Gigabyte of storage has been dropping dramatically over the same time period, an unexpected consequence has been the rising costs of managing this storage which is required to fully realize its potential and prevent catastrophic data loss.

Have you significantly increased your storage capacity and are now facing management and operational challenges?  Are you looking at implementing a SAN or virtualization and don't know where to start or what the ROI would be?  A Storage Assessment can help you answer these types of questions and regain control of your storage-related costs.  We analyze your storage environment in detail, identify specific area for improvement, and provide recommendations for achieving those improvements along with the detailed financial analysis you need to understand the tradeoffs and make the right decisions. 

What is Involved in a Storage Assessment?

A storage assessment is performed on-site by one of our certified storage experts and is comprised of the following phases:

1. Discovery:  This is the information collection phase where details about your IT environment and your most pressing issues (technical, process, and business related) are identified.  Any current plans or proposals to address these issues are also identified.  The discovery phase utilizes both expert tools and interviews with key personnel to formulate a complete picture of your storage environment and corresponding infrastructure.  The Discovery phase includes:
   • Data Monitoring and Collection at a granular level including storage capacities, utilization, performance, and file/folder access histories.
   • Creation of a topology map of the storage systems employed in the current environment.
   • Interviews with key personnel and IT management to capture a prioritized list of issues, concerns, and any plans that may exist to address them in the future.
   • A business/financial review that gathers data about total operating costs related to the current storage environment for later use in demonstrating cost savings and ROI for the solutions that will be proposed.

2. Documentation:  Your current storage environment is captured in the form of detailed reports and topography maps.

3. Design:  All collected information is analyzed and solutions are defined to address issues identified during the Discovery phase.  The design phase includes:
   • Data analysis
   • Solution definition where one or more solutions (including alternatives as appropriate) are defined.
   • Quotation creation that includes all of the costs related to implementing the proposed solution(s).

4. Proposal Delivery and Review:  A meeting is set up with your stakeholders (key IT personnel and executive management) where the proposal is presented and discussed.  Deliverables for this meeting include:
   • A description of the current storage environment
   • A description of the issues identified in the Discovery phase
   • An executive summary as well as a detailed description of the proposed solution(s) including quotation.
   • Financial justification report that details the ROI/TCO of the proposed solution(s)
   • Next steps, follow-up items, and timeline for solution implementation are discussed as appropriate

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