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Outsourcing with service providers

By CHARLES CLARK
Network World, 06/12/00

If you don't feel like becoming a SAN do-it-yourselfer, you can opt for a relatively new alternative - outsourcing your storage-area network to a storage service provider (SSP).

The SSP handles the whole shooting match, from design and installation to management. Working with this business model, customers are freed from huge capital investments that a modern storage infrastructure requires and the difficult task of recruiting qualified personnel to run the storage facility.

"I think that end-user customers are going to absolutely flock to SSPs because building a SAN, building an enterprise-class storage network for an internal IT shop, is a huge undertaking, which most [companies] do not have the skill sets to tackle," says Steve Duplessie, senior analyst with Enterprise Storage Group.

StorageNetworks in Waltham, Mass., is an SSP. The company has a VPN called the Global Data Storage Network, which has more than 200 terabytes of storage, most of which has been implemented as a SAN, according to John Clavin, vice president of business development.

The SANs consist of storage arrays with fabric switches connected to 28 points-of-presence (POP) throughout the U.S. and in London. Each of the POPs has its own data center and is interconnected. The network is monitored from a network operations center in Waltham.

Clavin says the SAN concept is suited to the needs of his company. "We've been a big proponent of SAN technology because it gives us the flexibility to add customer servers, storage arrays and tapes onto the network," he says.

In building its SANs, the company tries to remain vendor neutral, Clavin says, using equipment from several vendors, including EMC, Finisar, Nortel Networks, Brocade and StorageTek on the hardware side, and Legato and Veritas on the software side. StorageNetworks maintains its own interoperability lab where it qualifies these components, and then the SAN is deployed by the company's own personnel.

The company's Global Data Storage Network permits customers to obtain an unlimited amount of storage, replicate data, and back up and restore data from the network rather than from their own data center.

The services are delivered in the form of PACS (protection, availability, continuity and scalability), which are turnkey service packages. The PACS fall into three categories: DataPACS for primary data storage; the BackPACS for backup and restore; and SafePACS for data replication.

TechTarget.com, a Web start-up in Dedham, Mass., considered installing its own storage, but decided to outsource that function to StorageNetworks. CEO Greg Strakosch said he decided to outsource for two reasons: First, he determined that StorageNetworks could handle the job better and faster. Second, "While managing a storage farm is important, it's not anything that's going to add to our market cap, so we decided to outsource it," he says.

Related links

Clark is a freelance writer based in Haverhill, Mass. He can be reached at cclark1038@msn.com.

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