Intelligent storage management

Dimension Data will use EMC ViPR and ViPR SRM in the delivery of its own Managed Service for Storage, enabling intelligent storage management for clients globally.
The company has made ongoing investments in its managed services automation platform to automate service assurance, fulfilment, services catalogue and a self-service portal. The addition of EMC’s ViPR products enables 24/7 access to the tools and services required for effective and proactive storage provisioning, orchestration, management and reporting across multiple vendors’ storage technologies.

Steve Joubert, Group Executive, Data Centres at Dimension Data said, “Storage unit costs are declining, but costs rise as much as 35 percent due to growing application utilisation, compliance, and data protection strategies.”

In a 2013 forecast, research firm IDC estimated that enterprises will spend $6.5 billion on storage in 2015. Based on IDC’s calculations, capital expenses for data storage account for only 20 percent of the cost. The true cost of storage comes from other operational factors. “This means that, on average, for every dollar organisations spend on storage, a further four dollars are spent on the operational elements of managing stored data,” explained Joubert. Dimension Data’s Service is customisable to an organisation’s specific need, and is available in different consumption models.

Managed Service for Storage enables clients to:
· Retain data centre technology flexibility and continue to manage their storage processes, while Dimension Data takes on operational management of the infrastructure;
· Customise service catalogues to add storage capacity at a tiered level;
· Provision storage as needed, and be billed for actual data usage only. In addition, IT costs are converted from fixed to variable, which corresponds with business fluctuations;
· Clients have 24/7 access to data on their storage environment without special requests.

Today’s IT organisations play a key role in enabling business innovation and success through optimised data storage and management. They require technology to improve utilisation, troubleshoot issues, and plan capacity accurately,” said Manuvir Das, Senior Vice President, Advanced Software, Emerging Technologies Division, EMC Corporation. “Dimension Data has the expertise to help organisations drive business transformation, and this initiative brings together their services with EMC’s ViPR and ViPR SRM technologies to help clients take full advantage of automated storage services to increase operational efficiencies.”