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Private Storage Clouds - The Killer Cloud App for 2012

By Brent Rhymes

In 2009 and 2010, enterprise IT organizations undertook strategic initiatives aimed at turning the concept of private cloud computing into reality. Many organizations are aggressively adding cloud service management and automation software to their server virtualization projects in an attempt to turn their virtual server environments into private cloud infrastructure. These early stage private cloud initiatives typically focus on providing basic Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or virtual desktops to an enterprise organization's end-user community. Now, many organizations are seeking new solutions to deliver on their newly constructed private cloud infrastructure that provide real returns for the businesses they serve.  
 
One of the "killer" private cloud solutions that will emerge in 2012 are Private Storage Clouds. 
 
What are private storage clouds? 
 
Private storage clouds enable enterprise IT departments to offer storage as a service using their existing storage infrastructure. Key attributes include: 
 
Self-service storage portal: Private storage clouds should provide storage consumers such as DBAs, application developers, and server support staff with the ability to submit and track requests for automated storage services as well as advanced storage services such as replication, migrations, etc.  
 
Storage services catalog: Private storage cloud should provide users with a catalog of fully automated storage services. Storage consumers are restricted to accessing the storage services that are defined for their particular roles. 
 
Fully automated storage services: All storage services defined in a private storage cloud's catalog are fully automated and do not require manual effort by a storage administrator. Fully automated services can include storage provisioning, reclamation and remediation. 
 
Storage classification: Private storage clouds should provide storage administrators with the ability to classify storage as well as store services. For example, they may offer a fully automated service to provision "gold" or "tier-1" storage for an Oracle OLAP system. 
 
Policy-driven services: All services provided in a private storage cloud's storage services catalog should be driven by policies defined by the storage administrator. For example, storage administrators can specify that certain services require approval before they are delivered. 
 
Charge back/show back: Prime storage clouds should provide storage administrators with the option of associating chargeback or show back information to both the storage provisioned as well as the storage services performed. This chargeback information should be in a format that is readily accessible by an organization's existing chargeback system. 
 
Fully audited services: Each action performed by a private storage cloud fully automated storage service is recorded in a secure audit log. 
 
Why will private storage clouds be "hot" in 2012? 
 
There are several megatrends that will drive the adoption of private storage clouds starting in 2012. Our top five reasons include: 
 
1. Shortage of storage administrators: The traditional approach to storage management was to employ a highly skilled team of storage administrators who would then use tools such as scripts to provide storage services. As storage continues to grow at a rate of 62 percent per year and as IT staffing levels (even for storage administrators) remain at a flat or slow growth curve, IT organizations will have to turn the automation to increase storage administrator productivity to meet the growing demand for enterprise storage. 
 
2. Enterprise IT cannot rely on storage scripts to scale: Traditionally, storage administrators have used scripts to automate certain storage administration task. However, scripts pose several problems for enterprise IT organizations struggling with storage growth. First, scripts are tightly tied to the administrators that offer it. If an administrator leaves an organization, most of the scripts she developed become useless. Scripts are seldom documented, audited or put through formal QA process or adhere to an organization's change control procedures. These sins may have been forgiven in the past, but they can no longer be ignored now as organizations struggle to keep up with storage growth rates. 
 
3. External competition from public storage clouds: In the past, application developers, DBAs, server support staff and others who became frustrated with the turnaround times for storage provisioning by administrators would have no other alternative. Now these users have the option of seeking storage from public storage cloud providers. For some situations, an organization's IT department will be in direct competition with the public storage cloud providers. These organizations must offer a similar service using their existing storage infrastructure or face a diminished role in the IT organization. 
 
4. Regulatory compliance: The data the average enterprise IT organization manages is not only growing rapidly, but the ways an organization consumes and leverages the data they have accumulated over the years is also exploding as organizations seek to mine information from the vast quantities of data in their storage systems. This data and the new ways of analyzing it represent potential legal and regulatory exposures that enterprise IT organizations must manage. Private storage clouds insure that best practices are followed and that each operation performed with a private storage cloud is audited and recorded for regulatory compliance. 
 
5. Storage administrator turnover: Enterprise IT organizations are facing a storage administrator skills shortage right at the time that storage has entered an aggressive growth phase. The existing storage administrator workforce is aging, and in several cases reaching retirement. The storage administrators that are gainfully employed are operating in a tight labor market, which provides incentives for them to leave their existing employment situations for more lucrative offers. The bottom line is that IT organizations are going to have to face a higher degree of turnover among their storage administrator staff in the coming months and years. By ensuring that best practices for storage administration are encoded within automated storage services of private storage clouds, enterprise IT organizations can insulate themselves from the risk of storage administrator turnover. 
 
Private storage clouds will emerge as one of the key trends in private cloud adoption in 2012. We won't have to wait long before we start to see evidence of firms evaluating, implementing and realizing the real financial and organizational benefits of private storage clouds.