Can you hold your data?

Organisation, beer and breweries: how one data storage vendor got it right

When I heard that storage vendor McData was organising a trip to the Coors brewery as part of a recent press trip to Colorado, I briefly thought of the old adage about breweries and drinking.

While I was slightly amused by the connotation, my American hosts didn't seem to be. It transpired that they were not that familiar with the well-known UK catchphrase.

Although we were not allowed to get drunk, (we were reminded politely to observe the 'three-beverages-only' rule), the tour was well organised.

So in this case, the adage proved false, because at the end of the tour there were about a hundred people drinking efficiently in a brewery.

I'm glad the McData organisers chose to take us to the Coors brewery, because it appeals to my interest in availability, storage and capacity. After my three beverages, I had an epiphany.

Whether it was the snow-melted Rocky mountain water used in the brewing process or the two days of fabric conditioning, I will never know.

But I realised that drinking beer is akin to the data problems customers have. Some have too much and, although there is a high availability of it, there is little capacity.

In drinking terms, this often leads to a throughput problem where you might have to do a quick back-up in the nearest porcelain repository.

The other similarity of too much beer and too much data is the fact you can never find anything when you want it.

Fortunately, it seems that storage area networks (Sans) will solve a lot of these problems.

With better manageability, fast access to data and falling prices, Sans are gaining traction - not only in the corporate arena but in the SME space.

And with good recurring revenue opportunities via managed services, there seems no better time to start shifting Sans.