Waist Not, Want Not
Posted by Damien Bowersock on Mon, Nov 30, 2009 @ 02:32 PM
This morning I found myself emerging from a four-day
gluttonous bender that is the Thanksgiving tradition. During the holiday season, many people pause to reflect
back on the previous year and their status in time and space. Today, I too am one of those people;
reflecting on my seemingly ever expanding waistline. Which, I guess as an American, makes me average. Rapid expansion is acceptable this time
of year. (If only I could use the
extra pounds to hibernate.)
For IT shops, it is the end of the year and that means data
production and storage consumption is at an all-time high. Unfortunately, just as me, you can't
blame the extra bits being spun to disk on "preparing for three months of
blissful slumber." Instead, start
coming up with a new plan.
While we are in this time of reflection, take a moment as an
IT organization to evaluate your data retention and, more importantly, deletion
policies. This is generally a time
when IT organizations are limited in active projects, so it is a good time to
do some analysis. Determine if you
can eliminate or cut back on the 27 years of tape technology you have stored in
the vault at the back of the warehouse (you know who you are!) For production data, start determining
how you can reduce the footprint of the storage being consumed by building an
archive. Or, if you have the
impetus, give us a call and find out how you could deduplicate that production
storage. Any way you take it now
is the time to come up with a plan to trim your data's waistline.
So, embark with me on a journey of contraction. Each week I am going to strive to find
one new way to contract my waist.
I'm calling on IT administrators and managers to find one new way each
week to contract your waste. Post
your creative ideas in the comments section, and each week I'll report my
progress and summarize some of the amazing solutions I'm sure you are bound to
concoct.
Seasons Greetings!