Is storage a commodity?
The question of whether storage is a commodity recently came up in a discussion with several colleagues.
One argued that storage devices such as disk drives and tape drives have reached commodity status, listing Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) or SCSI tape and disk drives as examples. I suppose that at the low end of the market, storage has become a commodity. But both storage and server companies, trying to elevate the storage market from just disk or tape drives, are redefining storage.
Storage and server companies are combining disk and tape with highly functional software and infrastructure -- and in some cases, servers -- to make IT think about it more. Storage is no longer just about disk drives or tape drives, but rather it is a primary player in information access "solutions." Increasingly, we see server and storage vendors acquiring, or building strong strategic partnerships with, software companies that will complement their storage portfolio. Recent examples of this include Sun’s intent to acquire Highground Systems, well known for its storage resource management software, and EMC’s acquisition of CrosStor Software, whose HighRoad product allows network-attached storage and storage area networks to interact.
This "new" role for storage seems to be centered on storage solutions and manageability, rather than on tape and disk drives. This is not a new concept, by any means, as this is how storage is defined in the traditional mainframe environment as well. The main inhibitor to getting to this definition in the open-systems world has been the general lack of storage management and, more specifically, storage planning capabilities within the storage environment.
To bring this point home, I continue to receive e-mail from readers that say, "We’re still struggling to get a handle on our open-systems storage acquisitions." The "new" storage definition must include Storage Resource Management, infrastructure resource management and capacity planning capabilities, and centralized management of the traditionally distributed storage resources.
While the base components of a storage solution may have become commodity products, storage itself will continue to be innovative, bringing more capabilities to the IT professionals who manage that storage.
» posted by ITworld staff
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