IDC forecasts that the Midsize Enterprise (MSE) external disk storage systems market will grow to $6.0B in 2011, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.9%, which is almost twice as fast as the overall market 1 . While demands on the MSE to increase storage capacity are tremendous, the typical Midsize Enterprise faces a dilemma of how to manage and protect all that data without a corresponding increase in headcount.
To help customers solve this dilemma—and with an expanded focus on the MSE market— Network Appliance has unveiled the NetApp FAS2000 product line—the FAS2020 and FAS2050—and new deployment and auditing services designed to help simplify data management and maximize existing IT investments. Today NetApp brings to the market an enterprise-class storage technology that easily scales to help MSE customers maximize their data infrastructures while minimizing complexity, overhead, and technical staffing costs.
The MSE, as NetApp defines it, manages multiple servers and supports the data storage needs of anywhere between 100 and 1,000 employees. The size and scope of these businesses pose several challenges. The first is that they rely on their IT departments—normally staffed by an IT “generalist” —to keep the business running, and, by default, keep employees productive. These generalists may not have the time to tighten integration between major applications and the storage platform. The other challenge is the necessity to reduce overall costs by fully optimizing IT assets. Finally, these companies need to become agile enterprises, in other words, change, grow and adapt, for which they require an infrastructure that scales non-disruptively. NetApp MSE solutions, and the FAS2020 and FAS2050, empower the MSE to address these challenges.
“Although the typical MSE may have fewer IT resources than its large enterprise counterparts, it generally needs to address the same issues: managing dynamic data needs, contending with serious growing pains, and grappling with how to best prepare for unknowns,” said Brad Nisbet, program manager at IDC. “Solutions such as the FAS2000 will help these midsize companies deal with the demands of backup, disaster recovery, and server consolidation, all within the constraints of limited budget and lack of 'storage specialists.”
“The single most important benefit NetApp offers customers with these new solutions and services is the ability to accomplish more with fewer resources—particularly in terms of headcount," said George Thomas, Country Manager – India & SAARC, NetApp. "At the end of the day, if customers turn their expensive, legacy DAS infrastructure into a cost-effective networked storage model—and see hard savings on backup, disaster recovery, and data storage costs—they're well-prepared to handle the challenges of a growing business that might come their way.”
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