2004 Purchasing Intentions Survey

1
2004 Purchasing Intentions Survey

• Mark Schlack
• Editorial Director, Storage Media Group
• TechTarget

2
Methodology

• Email survey conducted in August, 2004
• Respondents had specific purchasing authority
• Average company size 1.79 billion annual
  revenue
• Results based on 606 respondents
• Some data compared to similar surveys in August
  and March of 2002-2004

3
Average storage budget is 2.4 million
Estimate your companys 2004 storage budget
4
Broad cross-section of industries
5
The big trends

• Budgets are up, but biggest spenders have backed
  off since March
• Disk spending is up and remains firm, with
  midrange purchases dominating
• Tools remain a problem
• The move to disk backup has begun, but some
  caution has set in on technology choices
• Tape taking on new importance as archiving
  becomes more important
• Networks slowly becoming more structured
• iSCSI getting cautious adoption

6
Initial optimism about budgets tempered at the
high end
How does your companys 2003 storage budget
compare to 2002?
How does your companys 2004 storage budget
compare to 2003?
7
Disk subsystems
8
Disk spending still strong, software not growing
Indicate the percentage of your 2004 storage
budget that was allocated to the following items
9
Users buying more disk capacity
How much storage do you expect your company to
purchase this year?
Average of all users
10
Most still buying under 10TB, but larger
purchases creeping up
How much storage do you expect to purchase in
2003?
How much storage do you expect your company to
buy?
11
Midrange purchases dominating disk buys
What percentage of your 2004 disk sybsystem
purchases will be for each of the following
categories?
12
Users seeking alternatives to NAS for files
Which best describes your plans for file storage?
13
Vendor choices stabilizing
Who will be your primary vendor for disk
subsystems?
14
Storage management software
15
Buyers remain unenthused by management software
Which best describes your purchase plans for
storage management software?
16
Users making do with bundled software from
hardware vendors
Rank your reasons for not increasing your
purchases of storage management software
17
Storage managers want basic tools
Rank the following storage management functions
in order of importance to you
18
Virtualization not the answer
Describe your plans to purchase storage
virtualization technology in 2004
19
Backup and disaster recovery
20
The tape to disk transition has begun
How will your use of tape change ?
21
Disk-to-disk backup gaining steam
Describe your plans for disk to disk backup
spending
22
Most disk strategies include tape, but some
hesitancy setting in
Which disk-to-disk backup strategies are you
employing?
23
LTO is dominating tape market
What is the primary format you will select for
tape backup in 2005?
24
Library purchases continue to grow
How many tape libraries will you purchase?
Avg slots203
25
Tape strong for compliance
Which technologies are you relying on to comply
with data retention regulations?
26
More on compliance
Describe your purchase plans for backup or
archive systems to comply with data retention
regs and laws?
27
Storage networking
28
Storage networks still developing

• Average respondent has
• 12 switches and plans to add 6 in 2005
• 2.8 fabrics and plans to have 3.1 by end of 2005
• 71 of switch purchases still for 32 ports or
  under only 7 over 128 ports
• 36 buying switches to expand SANs, 19 to build
  first SAN, 12 to create additional SANs

29
Islands still main form of SANs But users
indicate intent to migrate to other architectures
What best describes your current switch
architecture?
30
iSCSI getting cautious adoption
Will you deploy iSCSI in 2004?
31
Dedicated iSCSI LAN most common approach
How will you deploy iSCSI?
32
Switch vendor preferences continue to change
Who is your primary storage switch vendor?