Enterprises turn to IDM tools to simplify processes
HONG KONG enterprises with a well-established IT infrastructure are expected to spend more on information and data management (IDM) software to manage storage more efficiently than expand storage itself, even though the price of disk and tape storage is plummeting.
The Asia-Pacific IDM software market, which was worth US$1.2 million last year, will grow at a compound annual rate of 10 per cent to reach US$1.9 billion by 2009, according to the latest report by technology researcher International Data Corp (IDC).
IDC said Hong Kong businesses were expected to contribute US$84.8 million by 2009 to the region's IDM software market.
The growing demand for IDM software is driven by the need for storing data and managing and recovering critical data.
IDC market analyst Asia-Pacific Sharon Tan said: 'Growth is expected to be more significant in the relational database management segment. [This is] driven partly by the need for managing data generated by the increasing number of deployments of data-related applications, like enterprise resource planning and business intelligence [software], as well as data integration projects in the more mature economies.'
More vendors are focusing on storage management to meet user demand. Last week, Computer Associates (CA) launched its new version of BrightStor r11.5, an intelligent storage management application, in Hong Kong.
According to CA, intelligent storage management enables organisations to manage and protect information and storage assets in line with business objectives. A four-step process in intelligent storage management aims to provide the foundation to simplify the protection of business information and data, and resources management.
The four steps are identifying storage assets, clarifying and prioritising information based on its importance to businesses, defining and structuring the information with the appropriate technologies and processes, and automating the defined policies and procedures.
As storage volume is growing faster than storage budgets, the new BrightStor aims to bring efficient storage operations to reduce total cost of ownership.
BrightStor vice-president, development, Mathew Dickson said: 'To maximise the value of their storage infrastructure investments, customers need to proactively manage their storage environments in a manner that is closely aligned with how stored data is used by the business.'
The new version of BrightStor simplifies the set-up and management of disk-to-disk and disk-to-disk-to-tape backup processes, allowing IT to take advantage of cost-effective disk technologies and achieve service level objectives, Mr Dickson said.
The latest version also added support for the 64-bit platforms, as well as expanding support of the mid-range disk arrays to more vendors such as Sun, EMC and Hewlett-Packard.
New caching technology in BrightStor also enhances support for database applications from SAP and Sybase, and IBM's messaging software Lotus Notes. By including an agent for these applications, BrightStor distributed the data collection workloads, speeding up data analysis and improving application performance.
BrightStor's new component, Storage Command Centre, available later this year, should provide business-centric insight into storage by transforming raw technical information into an intuitive 'dashboard'.
Mr Dickson said it would enable IT management to quickly assess performance and understand how storage assets were supporting key business processes.
The company acquired iLumin, a messaging and archiving software company, last month to extend its storage management from database information to the unstructured data.
To be integrated with BrightStor, iLumin's Assentor product line provides enterprise message management and archiving for e-mail and instant messages.
BrightStor senior vice-president and general manager Chris Broderick said: 'Organisations are under intense pressure to improve management and protection of all their data - including e-mail and unstructured data.
'By enhancing our BrightStor enterprise portfolio with iLumin's e-mail management technology, CA can now offer customers a complete and streamlined approach to managing and protecting the full spectrum of information assets across the enterprise.'
