What Storage Managers Are Buying Storage magazine Spring 2008 Purchasing Intentions Survey Rich Castagna Editorial Director Storage Media Group TechTarget

About the survey… surveys conducted in March 2008 Respondents had specific purchasing authority Targets four areas: disk, network, backup & DR, storage management software Average company size: $2.0 billion annual revenue. (Small: $1B) Results based on 763 qualified respondents All industries, led by Health/Medical (12%), Financial (13%), Government (11%) and Manufacturing (11%) May 2008

Key findings… Spending still up (slightly)—budgets rising at a rate of about 3% Capacity still biggest issue--average disk capacity to be added this year way up Drives for existing subsystems continue to be biggest chunk of disk spend More key apps on iSCSI storage as deployments pick up Tape spending continues downward trend Increased interest in newer techs to manage/control capacity May 2008

Average storage budget: $3.2M Indicate your company’s 2008 storage budget May 2008

Disk spending still takes biggest bite out of budgets Percentage of 2008 storage budget allocated to the following May 2008

New disk capacity plans up sharply, reversing last year’s slowdown How much storage do you expect your company to purchase this year? Average of all users May 2008

Disk subsystems

Low-end disk systems losing favor as midrange heats up What percentage of your 2008 disk subsystem purchases fall into each category? May 2008

Trend of building out existing storage systems continues May 2008

File storage: DAS still favored over NAS filers, gateways Which best describes your plans for file storage? May 2008

Top 7 leaders stay the same, not much change with smaller players Who have you purchased disk subsystems from or intend to purchase from in 2008? May 2008

Mindshare: EMC widens lead over HP, IBM/NetApp pass Dell Who will be your primary disk subsystem vendor for 2008? May 2008

Big biz likes EMC, SMBs favor HP & Dell, NetApp picks up across the board Who will be your primary vendor for disk subsystems in 2008? May 2008

In 2007, tech support and price became bigger factors What is the main factor in your choice of primary storage vendor? Percent of Responses Fall 2007 May 2008

For 2008, features still top factor, market position gains What is the main factor in your choice of primary storage vendor? Percent of Responses Spring 08 May 2008

Storage networking

Number of SANs flat, big biz consolidation may be looming How many SAN fabrics do you have? Spring 2008: overall average of 3.0 SAN fabrics May 2008 Dec-08

Big, mid-sized companies continue move to directors Average number of switches installed: 15—and plan to add nearly 6 Overall, 31% have director-based fabrics—up from 27% last fall 56% of big companies have director-based networks—up from 47% a year ago Mid-sized companies also shifting to directors— 31% expect to be there by end of ‘08 May 2008

Brocade and Cisco still neck and neck for switch market mindshare Who will be your primary storage switch vendor in 2008? May 2008

40% have deployed/will deploy iSCSI in 2008, strong SMB interest Have you deployed, or will you deploy iSCSI in 2007? May 2008 Small Mid-Size Big

More critical apps and running on iSCSI What applications will you put on your iSCSI SANs? May 2008

Why users are opting for iSCSI… Primary reason for deploying iSCSI storage in 2008 May 2008

Some users still cool to iSCSI, but performance, reliability seem okay Primary reason for NOT deploying iSCSI storage in 2008 May 2008

WAN spending remains flat, little change over last year Describe your spending plans for extending your storage network over the wide area May 2008

Wide-area network spending decline is across the board 36% will increase wide area spending (down from 49% a year ago) 52% say DR is driving wide area purchases (down from 67% a year ago) 28% will connect data centers (down from 40% last fall) 25% will buy more or faster long-distance communications lines (down from 45%) 13% say they’ll buy WAFS (18% last fall) Interest in WAN accelerators holds (23% vs. 22% last fall) May 2008

Backup and disaster recovery

Tape spending plans continue to decline—lowest levels recorded How will your use of tape change ? May 2008

Tape purchasing plans down across all company sizes Big companies 29% plan to cut tape spending (vs. 26% last fall) 41% will increase tape spending (vs. 54% a year and a half ago) Mid-sized companies 29% will decrease tape spending (vs. 19% last spring) 34% will increase tape spending (vs. 41% last fall) Small companies 22% will increase spending vs. 28% last fall May 2008

Tape spending dropping and tape libraries getting smaller Average number of slots in tape libraries you have purchased/will purchase in 2008? May 2008

D2D backup plans steady… Slight increases, but no jump linked to sagging tape plans Describe your plans for disk-to-disk backup spending May 2008

Disk most favored for staging backups, VTL losing favor Which disk-to-disk backup strategies are you using? May 2008

Interest in dedupe continues to grow, nearly half will increase 2008 spending In 2008, your spending for deduplication products probably will… May 2008

EMC builds on its lead, smaller D2D vendors gain some ground Who is your main disk backup vendor? Represents respondents increasing or maintaining D2D backup spending May 2008 Data Domain moves into top five

Planned spending for DR holds steady, still strong Spending plans for DR products and services in 2007 May 2008

Off-site tape and replication key areas of DR spending Primary storage-related expenditure for DR in 2008 May 2008

Disaster recovery still prime mover for wide-area spending What is driving your wide-area storage network purchases? May 2008

Anticipated compliance spending falls back to 4-year low Purchase plans to comply with data retention laws March 2008

File system, archivers still tops, modest plans for ‘08 What types of data archiving products are you currently using/plan to purchase in 2007? May 2008

Tape encryption not gaining any ground—data still at risk Have you deployed storage security? May 2008

Storage management software

Most biding time on management apps, “increase/maintain” at all time low Purchase plans for storage management software May 2008

Storage grows, staff doesn’t—looking for help from management apps 41% want to manage more storage with same staff (vs. 37% last fall) & 8% need to manage storage with less staff 23% use what comes with hardware 34% have all management software they need Money matters -- 22% lack budget for more software, 7% say it costs too much May 2008

Interest in capacity related tools, others just “nice to have” Rank these storage management functions in order of importance Rankings based on an index where SRM=100 May 2008

Hardware vendors favored for management apps Who have you purchased from or intend to purchase from in 2008? May 08

Features, current vendors and SMI-S key to purchase decisions 31% say features/functions most important for choosing management software vendor 59%: SMI-S compliance is very or somewhat important—up from last spring’s 45% What the heck is SMI-S? 32% still not sure 27% say EMC will be prime vendor in 2008, 12% say HP and 12% give Symantec the nod Smaller storage management players still looking to gain momentum May 2008

Interest in virtualization, but purchase plans still modest Describe your purchase plans for storage virtualization May 2008 More than 50% say they have virtualized at least some of their storage…

What’s hot—top ten techs users paln to implement/evaluate in 2008 May 2008

Closing thoughts… Tough economy tips budgets down a little)… …but capacity looks like it’s taking off again Storage managers building out existing arrays… …and taking a look at less costly iSCSI storage iSCSI confidence up, and purchase plans on the rise too Dedupe is hot—tape is not The “Year of Storage Virtualization” … maybe next year May 2008

Thank you… Rich Castagna Editorial Director, Storage Media Group TechTarget