Dell PowerVault DL2200 - Manual (Page 3)

ESG WHITE PAPER
Symantec’s Data Management Portfolio
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Copyright 2009, The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
IT Environment Challenges
Dramatic Changes
Organizations of all sizes have been undergoing dramatic changes over the last few years. With an increasingly
mobile workforce and global marketplace, dependence on digital content and 24/7 access to information have
fueled significant investments in IT infrastructure and a near-exclusive use of messaging systems, office
productivity tools, and electronic data to conduct business. The by-product? Unabated data growth, which is
causing considerable pain for IT organizations.
Some organizations face additional pressures. Many IT environments are characterized by distributed
operations and data, a mix of structured and unstructured content, and a variety of physical and virtual
components
—all adding complexity. Social responsibility, as well as power and cooling challenges, may have
also forced implementation of “Green” IT initiatives. Conforming to industry or regulatory standards and
regulations for security, privacy, disclosure, and retention of information may be yet another business imperative
to be addressed. Finally, current macro-economic conditions may be restricting capital budgets and constraining
IT operational resources, making it even more important to drive efficiency and automation in IT.
Difficulty Keeping Pace
The relentless growth in the volume of data to be stored, managed, transferred, protected, and archived is
staggering. Recent ESG research shows that double-digit data growth is straining storage infrastructure and
management (see Figure 1),
1
with IT organizations often citing difficulty keeping pace. It has created a number
of obstacles for IT, including maintaining continuous operations while also containing the cost of storage
systems and media, reducing backup and recovery times, complying with regulatory mandates and litigation
requests, and saving time and money.
These challenges are driving organizations to improve storage utilization, reduce costs, and advance their ability
to protect and manage mission-critical and mission-supporting information resources to better meet business
demands. IT organizations are seeking solutions that not only address specific, immediate business problems,
but that do so in a way that is cost-effective and delivers rapid, measurable ROI.
1 Source: ESG Research Report: Medium-sized Business Server and Storage Priorities, June 2008.