Storage Management Costs

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Another factor that drove the writing of this text was the terrific rise in storage management total cost of ownership (TCO) over the past decade. Ten years back, storage hardware accounted for the bulk of total costs, with management taking up only a small percentage of the total. The lines crossed around 1996 (Exhibit 2). Nowadays, the hardware accounts for a relatively small percentage of the costs, with management being by far the dominant cost. Think about it for a moment: Management costs include people, software, security, facilities, energy, hardware, and many other expenses. As the size and complexity of distributed computing environments have multiplied, so has the amount of management required. So, it appeared to be time to give the subject of disk management and, in particular, server disk management a little more attention.

Exhibit 2: Storage Management Costs

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