Using reports produced by Scentric's Destiny, Rodriquez was first able to show management and users how many old files they were storing and how infrequently those files were being accessed. Rodriguez now sets policies that automate the classification, movement and retention of files on his Windows servers.

Scentric's reporting feature allowed Rodriguez to justify to his managers the purchase and introduction of another tier of storage at half the price of Tier 1 storage without increasing management overhead and costs. Rodriguez configures Destiny to keep files on Tier 1 storage for 45 days, on Tier 2 for another three months and then moves the files to another location where they are backed up and then deleted from disk. Rodriguez's says his only regret so far is, "I wish Scentric offered similar functionality for the mainframe."

Organizations are also deploying array-based block virtualization to better manage and control their tiered storage environments. Fidelity National Title Group Inc. in Jacksonville, Fla., covers nearly one-third of all U.S. real estate title insurance policies and needed a system that would handle the 2.5 million transactions it processed annually. The system also had to maintain its online repository of 45 million historical documents.

To manage the data, the insurance company implemented a three tier storage design that uses Hitachi's TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform (USP) for Tier 1 high-performance storage requirements, which in turn virtualizes the company's Tier 2 HDS Thunder 9585V modular storage systems. This architecture enables non-disruptive migration of their data between tiers and access to data with lower-performance demands when application needs dictate.

Another product that allows users to more easily manage tiered storage deployments is Bycast Inc.'s StorageGRID product. Vancouver, British Columbia-based Bycast sells its technology as a CAS (Content Addressable Storage) appliance that is accessed by servers over Ethernet connections using standard CIFS and NFS protocols. Though it uses a NAS-like interface, unlike NAS appliances StorageGRID indexes and classifies files as they are stored and gives users the option to virtualize both disk and tape storage. Users may then set policies to manage the placement of data storage devices. The policies control a file's retention period as well as its placement and movement between the different back end tiers of storage.