19 December 2017

Among its research findings, Tintri discovered that most IT pros miscalculate their storage needs when planning new capacity. Shown here is the vendor’s T5000 which is said to be the first all-flash appliance to offer up to 308TB for 5,000 VMs.

Nearly a quarter of storage capacity planning decisions are made by IT leaders on the basis of a ‘best guess’ or no planning at all, according to research by Tintri. 

After polling 110 IT pros at IP EXPO in London in October, the flash storage specialist found that when planning storage capacity needs, 42 per cent rely on previous experience, but only 12 per cent run a simulation project to help accurately guide decisions. 

Almost 10 per cent revealed that they did not carry out any planning for future needs, and only a fifth said they relied on input from technology vendors or partners.

“While previous experience and knowledge are valuable methods to help predict future storage needs, many environments are becoming too complex to rely on that approach anymore,” says Tintri CMO Scott Buchanan. “Guesswork leads to performance issues or over-provisioning – and with the analytics tools available today, it’s simply unnecessary.”

Furthermore, 70 per cent admitted miscalculating their storage needs when planning new capacity. Forty three per cent reported that they have underestimated their needs, while 27 per cent said they have overestimated. 

In addition, 77 per cent of the respondents said that up to a fifth of their storage capacity is unused, except as acting as a buffer to maintain performance. Only 10 per cent were able to say that they operated with five per cent unused storage capacity or less.