2006 SAN & NAS Report

This research paper examines the adoption and vendor preferences of both end-users and resellers of storage networking products.

For end-users, the rate of NAS adoption increased by five points to 64%.  While in the past private sector adoption exceeded public sector adoption, in 2006 the public sector caught up.  Now both sectors of the economy have the same rate of NAS adoption.  NAS adoption among heavy storage users (over 25 TB) increased, while adoption rates for light and moderate users were flat.  HP was the most frequently mentioned NAS supplier, displacing IBM and EMC.    Ease of integration with existing equipment remained the most important factor for vendor selection.

SAN adoption increased substantially from last year to 72% of all respondents.  Public sector adoption of SAN technology continued to outpace the private sector.  The marketing activity to the SMB sector has paid off, as SAN adoption is up in both the light and moderate storage users.   Cost and lack of need remained the most commonly mentioned barriers to SAN adoption. 

Fibre Channel connectivity remains the dominant type for SAN installations.  The proportion of users reporting a pure Ethernet configuration was down, while more reported using a combination of FC and Ethernet technologies.  The ranking of storage switch vendors was unchanged from last year.  IBM and HP tied for the number of mentions of SAN hardware vendors.  IBM had been tied with EMC for first place last year.  EMC was only one point behind the leaders.  Features and the ease of integration with existing equipment were the key factors in vendor selection for SAN hardware and switches.

Exhibit 1: End-user Hardware Vendor Preferences

The overall adoption rate of Backup and Recovery software appeared to decline, but the amount was within the margin of error for this survey.  For those that did not use this software, the fact that backup tools were included with the solution was the most frequent reason.  In this respect, users do not appear to consider bundled software equivalent to software purchased separately.  Vendor rankings for backup software were unchanged from last year.

SRM software adoption continued to stagnate around 43%.  Non-users were queried as to their reasons.  Once again, the most commonly cited reason was that suitable tools were included with the solution.  While users employ the functionality of SRM, some do not seem to identify the brand. Veritas/Symantec and EMC lead the rankings of incumbent SRM vendors.  HP had a large gain to move into third place.

Adoption rates for compliance strategies and information life-cycle management policies remained stagnant from last year.  Seventy-five percent of respondents had implemented or were in development of a compliance strategy.  Only 68% were at this stage for ILM. 

The demand for storage capacity is anticipated to increase over the coming year.  Last year users expected an average 18% increase in storage capacity.  This figure increased to 29% in 2006.  Unfortunately this increased capacity is not accompanied by increased budgets.  Users forecast an average increase of only 2% in their IT budget for the coming year.

Given these realities, it is not surprising that the key issue facing storage users in 2006 is difficulty keeping up with the demand for storage.  This eclipsed last year’s top issue of disaster recovery.  To cope, respondents indicated they intended to purchase SAN storage, SAN switches and NAS products. 

Reseller rankings of brands had a few differences from end-user installations.  Resellers were segmented according to their participation in the storage market.  Where differences among these segments are significant, they are noted in the report.  For all storage products, interoperability with on-site equipment, performance and customer specifications continued to be the most important factors in vendor selection.

Exhibit 2: Reseller Recommended Hardware Brands

Veritas/Symantec continued to be the most recommended vendor for all categories of storage software.   The drivers of vendor selection in the software markets were interoperability, performance and customer specifications.