A Wealth Of Data

• Share

(2 of 2)

On Sept. 25, HP, which has a partnership with cabinetmaker Hitachi, completed its $310 million purchase of StorageApps, a company based in Bridgewater, N.J., that competes with Veritas in making tools that allow companies to pool their storage devices and access unused space. Last month EMC bought Luminate Software of Redwood City, Calif.--its seventh software acquisition in nearly two years.

Veritas and competitors such as DataCore, based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., sell software programs that allow a customer to pool storage on devices otherwise isolated from one another. These programs, called virtualization technology, are helping raise storage-hardware utilization rates to 80% or so from their current 50% by allowing isolated storage servers to communicate with one another. That means more storage without new hardware--but given that storage needs are doubling annually, for many customers that may only mean no new hardware for six months--"and we're in the sixth month," Duplessie says. And while the hardware companies all express commitment to open storage networks, companies such as Sun (which, like HP, is partnered with Hitachi) and IBM have a vested interest in selling their entire line.

Industry businesses will continue to adapt to customers' needs. Telecoms have begun offering storage as a utility to small and midsize enterprises--Bell South and Storage Networks, a storage services and software company, are expected to announce such a partnership this month. And despite that 100-GB hard drive in your new PC, some industry players, such as Xdrive of Santa Monica, Calif., offer online storage to users of home PCs, a place to keep their personal documents, favorite videos, music--heck, just about anything but old furniture.