The New Storage Lexicon

Storage network consolidation. You know, what they used to call virtualization. That term is apparently just too squishy and intangible (not to mention poorly suited to actual spending plans). But consolidation -- that's good, right? Saves money. Cuts down on operational expenses and personnel, doesn't it? Hello? Is this thing on?

Application tuning. I think this one's a little more real and substantial, if only because I heard users talking about it and using the phrase a lot during the course of StoragePlus. While the term is most commonly associated with Oracle and databases, the concept of how to process records or handle app-specific backup issues makes a difference in storage operation and efficiency. Not a storage issue per se, but something you'll likely be reading about more here at Byte and Switch.

Data protection. Great little catch-all, most commonly referring to the security aspect of stored data, but also mentioned with regard to compliance issues, backup policies, and disaster recovery all rolled into one. With that in mind, tilting the screen of my laptop (so you can't shoulder surf) qualifies me as a data protector.

Data classification. Not really new. It refers to structured, unstructured, and even something called semi-structured data -- aka databases, files, and email. This is a backdoor method for selling disk backup, it seems to me, and to introduce the topic known variously as storage management, intelligent search, or enterprise content management. References to ILM prompted one of two reactions from StoragePlus speakers or attendees--snickers or eye-rolls.

Storage "pooling." Again, a way around the morass and fog of virtualization. A subset of virtualization, whereby storage capacity from several arrays (all of the sales staff files, for example) gets managed as a single entity for setting RAID groups.