Yesterday was probably the worst day for the credit crunch and the global problems being experienced by banks. Recession is biting and without a doubt many companies are looking at how they can reduce their storage costs.
Reducing costs doesn't mean buying new hardware. Ask yourself some searching questions. Am I sure my configuration is optimally configured? Can I release any overallocated storage? Can I reclaim any orphan LUNs?
The picture on the right shows how storage attrition occurs as raw disk is carved up, converted into LUNs and presented out to hosts. There's plenty of room for resource recovery.
This diagram doesn't even cover orphan storage. Typically I've found anywhere between 10-20% orphan resources reclaimable in large environments. This is free money you can get back tomorrow (or today if you're quick). Most SAN arrays have:
- LUNs presented to storage ports but not masked to anything
- LUNs presented to hosts which have "gone away" - decommissioned, HBAs changed etc
- LUNs presented to HBAs/hosts for which no zoning is present
- Snapshot (BCV/ShadowImage) volumes never synchronised
This is only a small subset of what can be reclaimed. With a bit of time and the right tool, you could even delay that next storage purchase and keep the boss happy!!
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