Excerpts

Preface

Computer storage has to be the most exciting, influential and rapidly changing aspect of ICT in any organization today, particularly as storage and its associated issues are more strategic to organizations now than ever before. Modern computer storage has now been with us for over half a century, since the advent of the first hard disk called the IBM® 350, which was developed by International Business Machines and yielded a native capacity of 5MB.

Computer storage, and its pathway of progression has not always run smoothly, and as such presents management and security issues that must be addressed. Furthermore, we are faced with other concerns including disaster recovery, archiving and data longevity (which can require the initiation of data preservation strategies, such as emulation and migration). If this was not enough to contend with, we also have legal obligations to fulfill in relation to data protection, privacy, time constraints regarding data retention and many other new legislative issues.

The emphasis of the IT department is changing, or rather expanding in new directions, which subsequently creates new disciplines. For example, since the early days of the 'modern office' and the 'server boom' at the onset of the 1980's, the IT department has seen the birth of many new roles including the client/server system administrator, the desktop support technician, the storage administrator and the storage technology specialist. Furthermore, we have witnessed a whole host of new sciences, technologies and client solutions, all of which introduce fresh buzzwords, abbreviations and acronyms, together with interoperability issues, management problems and often data security fears.

The IT department now serves as an agent for change, rather than merely expanding existing infrastructure and assisting the user base in straightforward desktop computing issues. Effective change can however, only be undertaken once the business has set realistic objectives and advised the IT department accordingly. Some requirement for change will always be customer-driven, whereby your next business deal may require a different approach regarding the use of technology, or the need to interface with your customer's dissimilar IT system. Alternatively, you may find that your next marketing campaign requires a specific
e-Commerce strategy. In these instances, it is your IT department who are best placed to act as the facilitator to meet such requirements.

The aim of this book is to explore the computer storage arena in its widest context. To this end, we shall start by asking the question where does my storage capacity go? From this, we can start to examine a range of management concerns and explore some of the client technologies currently available, before taking a peek into the exciting world of 'emerging technologies' and 'next generation concepts'. Other key management issues surrounding computer storage and the success of this book include:

	Managing systems that manage your data
	Backup and tape issues
	Assessing the value of your data
	Data security
	Data preservation
	IT storage projects

It is fair to say that all of the above high profile areas need to be addressed if you are to stay ahead of the game and enable your organization to become a significant player in its market. Furthermore, in light of the changing landscape of IT in the current climate, IT strategy should now be an intimate part of your overall business strategy, which is discussed openly in the boardroom and incorporates a thorough analysis of your organization and all of its processes.

I hope that you will find this book as interesting to read, as it has been to write.