The evolution of hierarchical storage management

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The process of automatically storing data on the lowest-cost devices that can support the performance required by the applications. To users,data storage never fills and file access, regardless of location in the storage hierarchy, is completely transparent. The software automatically manages multiple levels of storage hierarchy.

2004 marked the 30th anniversary of hierarchical storage management (HSM). IBM's invention of HSM is considered by many as the precursor to what is known today as Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). This fundamental technology helps address the need to save critical time and storage media costs by moving data from one medium to another. Originally called the virtual storage concept capable of managing one half a terabyte of data, this concept of helping mainframe customers move data from tape to a then-new disk-based storage medium remains relevant even in today's virtualized storage architectures.

As it turns 30 years old, HSM continues to give customers the ability to automate critical processes relating to the media on which data is stored, reducing storage media and administrative costs associated with managing data. With the hierarchical storage management and archive software market growing at a rate of 17% per year, according to Gartner, this approach continues to be one of the first steps organizations take in managing the value of their data.

HSM in Today's Storage Environment

The reason an IT manager might choose HSM as the "entry point" or "next step" toward evolving to an On Demand storage environment is because the manager is challenged with an environment that is growing rapidly and has identified classes of data that can be moved to lower-cost storage.

Many organizations struggle to understand how to determine the best data management method for managing inactive data and optimizing storage management systems. Because of the amount of data that can pile up--IDC claims the total number of e-mails sent daily worldwide is growing from 9.7 billion in 2000 to 35 billion in 2005--an HSM strategy employing both storage and content management is a necessary provision for customers.