That's where ILM comes in. Generally speaking, data needs to be accessed often only during the first stage of its life. As data gets older, access to it becomes more infrequent. After a time, data may need to be kept only for archival reasons.
ILM lets us manage data according to government and business rules, moving it down the stack and into permanent storage as needed. For example, monthly sales data can walk down the stack as it becomes accessed less, freeing up valuable space on our primary disk arrays. The beauty is that the need for data retention is met, with the added benefit of using the optimal storage based on frequency of access.
You'll hear an earful about ILM in the coming year, if you haven't already. Major end-to-end storage players, including EMC and Hewlett-Packard, are formulating plans to make ILM technology available to the masses. Veritas, Fujitsu Softek and other software vendors are planning plays in this space, too.
But, as tempting as it might be, early adoption is a no-no. Right now, vendors are simply retooling their current products to play to this market trend. To do real ILM, you need a scheme for access-frequency-based data migration, data naming and the boatloads of standards the industry seems unlikely and unwilling to build, partly because of commoditization fears. ILM will happen, but it needs to be well-thought-out and driven by users, not by the industry's need to sell complex solutions.
Tape technology in the data center will continue on its modified course. Disk-to-disk-to-tape backup is going to become the norm--if you haven't implemented DDT in your backup scheme, next year might be the time. Many companies, including Quantum and StorageTek, are offering disks that emulate tape drives to help with a seamless install in your environment. A key reason for using disk with tape emulation is the lack of support for direct disk access by much of today's tape-backup software, though by next year we expect backup software vendors to address this problem.
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