While that may work for the short term, that is not a sustainable long-term model. Though price and reputation are worth something and should be a factor in the decision-making process, someone needs to look beyond the daily tasks of allocating storage and responding to crises and ask critical questions before just buying more storage. Questions like "What do I want my storage infrastructure to look like?" and "Will this purchase move me down that road?" are good starting points.

Without knowing the answers to those two questions, you end up with the kludge many organizations try to manage now. Disparate systems with no central management interface, different pockets of individuals with varying levels of expertise and no one who has the knowledge or authority to take companies down a path of change. Yet to establish a storage vision requires organizations possess some type of base line information so they can identify where they are at now before determining where to go next.

Only a few vendors such as MonoSphere Inc., Onaro Inc., Scentric Inc. and TeraCloud Corp. are positioning themselves to deliver this baseline information quickly and easily across companies of all size. And while these companies and their products may not take center stage at the next storage conference, they are the ones that offer the type of products that can help you quantify how deep a hole you are right now and some insight into how to dig your way out.

Jerome Wendt currently works as a storage engineer and storage analyst. He contributes regularly to a variety of industry trade publications and can be reached atjerome.wendt@att.net (mailto:jerome.wendt@att.net).