2004 Purchasing Intentions Survey Mark Schlack Editorial Director, Storage Media Group TechTarget

Methodology survey conducted in August, 2004 Respondents had specific purchasing authority Average company size: $1.79 billion annual revenue Results based on 606 respondents Some data compared to similar surveys in August and March of

Average storage budget is $2.4 million Estimate your company’s 2004 storage budget

Broad cross-section of industries

The big trends Budgets are up, but biggest spenders have backed off since March Disk spending is up and remains firm, with midrange purchases dominating Tools remain a problem The move to disk backup has begun, but some caution has set in on technology choices Tape taking on new importance as archiving becomes more important Networks slowly becoming more structured iSCSI getting cautious adoption

Initial optimism about budgets tempered at the high end How does your company’s 2003 storage budget compare to 2002? How does your company’s 2004 storage budget compare to 2003?

Disk subsystems

Disk spending still strong, software not growing Indicate the percentage of your 2004 storage budget that was allocated to the following items

Users buying more disk capacity How much storage do you expect your company to purchase this year? Average of all users

Most still buying under 10TB, but larger purchases creeping up How much storage do you expect to purchase in 2003? How much storage do you expect your company to buy?

Midrange purchases dominating disk buys What percentage of your 2004 disk sybsystem purchases will be for each of the following categories?

Users seeking alternatives to NAS for files Which best describes your plans for file storage?

Vendor choices stabilizing Who will be your primary vendor for disk subsystems?

Storage management software

Buyers remain unenthused by management software Which best describes your purchase plans for storage management software?

Users making do with bundled software from hardware vendors Rank your reasons for not increasing your purchases of storage management software

Storage managers want basic tools Rank the following storage management functions in order of importance to you

Virtualization not the answer Describe your plans to purchase storage virtualization technology in 2004

Backup and disaster recovery

The tape to disk transition has begun How will your use of tape change ?

Disk-to-disk backup gaining steam Describe your plans for disk to disk backup spending

Most disk strategies include tape, but some hesitancy setting in Which disk-to-disk backup strategies are you employing?

LTO is dominating tape market What is the primary format you will select for tape backup in 2005?

Library purchases continue to grow How many tape libraries will you purchase? Avg slots=203

Tape strong for compliance Which technologies are you relying on to comply with data retention regulations?

More on compliance Describe your purchase plans for backup or archive systems to comply with data retention regs and laws?

Storage networking

Storage networks still developing Average respondent has: 12 switches and plans to add 6 in fabrics and plans to have 3.1 by end of % of switch purchases still for 32 ports or under; only 7% over 128 ports 36% buying switches to expand SANs, 19% to build first SAN, 12% to create additional SANs

Islands still main form of SANs – But users indicate intent to migrate to other architectures What best describes your current switch architecture?

iSCSI getting cautious adoption Will you deploy iSCSI in 2004?

Dedicated iSCSI LAN most common approach How will you deploy iSCSI?

Switch vendor preferences continue to change Who is your primary storage switch vendor?