Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Millions 'Wasted' on Storage Nets

Millions of dollars are being wasted by companies that buy storage technology they sometimes dont need -- and even forget they’ve got -- according to Source Consulting, an independent U.K. storage consultancy.

In business for two years, Source Consulting has a catalogue of horror stories of blue-chip companies that have poured money down the drain when investing in storage infrastructure.

“One company spent half a million pounds [US$700,000] on a storage system that wasn’t even being used,” says Jason Rabbetts, the consultancy’s co-founder and commercial director. The company bought a massive disk repository from EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) and then forgot about it. Each department assumed it was being used by other departments when in fact it was standing idle, says Rabbetts.

The reverse happened at another company known by Source Consulting. It lost close to $15,000 an hour when its systems went down for two days without sufficient backup, according to Rabbetts. The problem? “The company had 300 more servers than it thought it had."

The list of companies that don’t realize how much money they are wasting due to mismanagement of their storage “is endless,” he says.

  • 1