"Our platform, according to the vendors, can support automation, but none of those automation features were used," noted Ngai from the HKJC. "We still move data across the tier manually."

One major consideration is technology. "Automations are often tools and features built-in in our platforms," said Ngai. "We are confident in auto-provisioning within a single platform, but when it comes to the heterogeneous environment, we are not sure, and we haven't got the time to try yet.

Another consideration is business priority. He explained a lot of planning, like how to create the volume for provisioning and which disks are to create the virtual pool, it all required detailed planning and testing.

"Our team is quite familiar with the process in moving data between tiers, thus automation doesn't really help to do it faster," he said. "Nevertheless, we do have a plan in bringing automation, but we don't have anything concrete yet."

Despite the hesitation among users in applying various technologies associated with ILM, Sargeant noted they are essential eventually, as information is growing so fast that it will become difficult to manage manually.