With the explosion of data, some estimate in the range of 60% annually, you need a way to rein in the uncontrolled growth of storage devices in your enterprise. Additionally you need a way to simplify storage management and operational complexity, while reducing energy consumption and costs.

Some vendors believe the answer is disk. They believe disk arrays are the answer to every storage question and issue. You have pushed back and new technologies, such as data deduplication, have been developed. Although data deduplication is a fantastic technology in the right places, it still does not tame the data explosion and resulting costs to satisfy your storage needs. Again these are disk vendors or vendors that believe disk can solve every storage issue and answer every storage question now and into the future.

So what is the answer? You and I both know it is a balanced blend of disk and tape that can ultimately address your data explosion and storage needs. Why keep data on disk when the likelihood of being referenced after 90 days is almost zero? Why continue to consume energy with data that is unlikely to be referenced? Why continue to take up invaluable floor space in your data center with disk arrays when Terabytes and Petabytes of long term storage on tape is more cost, energy, and space efficient? Sun advocates a true tiered storage strategy, with a mix of Disk, Tape, Virtual Storage and effective Software Management.

On July 14th Sun presented a webinar on how you can consolidate and save on storage costs within your enterprise, from the tape perspective. Watch it now and receive new insights on how Sun's tape automation solutions can benefit your open, mainframe or mixed data storage environments.