Symantec joins the Thin storage ecosystem

Storage resource utilization is high on everybody's list as a major problem to overcome. Its not that storage companies don't understand the problem, but solving it involves overcoming decades of ingrained methods and assumptions of how file systems, volume managers and storage targets work.

Thin provisioning is a technology designed to escape legacy storage design inefficiencies.  It asks the question: "What if you didn't have to reserve large amounts of physical disk capacity for future growth?"  In other words, what if you could allocate storage just in time, instead of keeping stockpiles of unused storage inventory?

Thin provisioning is a technology with legs, not just a knock-off feature.  Most companies have it in some form or another with a range of capabilities. Yesterday, Barry Whyte from IBM blogged about their success in benchmarking a thinly provisioned SVC storage conglomeration.  3PAR is obviously not the only company working on the development of the technology.

Still, the industry has only scratched the surface of it's potential.  This week, Symantec joined the thin storage industry with their announcement of their Thin Friendly Veritas Storage Foundation.  The basic idea is that Symantec's VxFS file system can interact with Thin-enabled storage systems by reclaiming blocks on disk that were previously written to but can now be  returned to free space.

Jeff Boles from the Teneja group said this about the announcement:

"Thin provisioning has quickly become a 'must have' in the fight against low disk utilization, which is cited time and time again as a major pain point for data centers. "By enabling third party products at the file system level to integrate with thin technology, 3PAR has taken yet another big next step in the evolution of thin provisioning, eliminating the chances that file system formats, and consumption and deletion over time can affect your ability to capacity-optimize your storage. Once again, 3PAR demonstrates the power that comes with making thin more than just a bolt-on technology."