The 451 Group: Limitations in Data Management Capabilities Cause Many Large Enterprises to Delay...

NEW YORK -- The 451 Group has found that many large enterprises have delayed broadening their grid deployments because of limitations in data management capabilities. Managing data on grids is a core capability and a key driver for enterprise grid adoption, but users have been frustrated by the

lack of progress from vendors in meeting this need and have had to rely on their own resources to successfully manage data on grids. These findings appear in a report released today by The 451 Group, a New York-based technology industry analyst company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation.

"At this point, the compute grid is well understood. But much less time has been devoted to getting data where it needs to be, when it needs to be there, as well as to how this process is managed," said John Abbott, Chief Analyst at The 451 Group and principal author of the report. "As the momentum of commercial grid computing builds, the ability to put data in the most suitable places - so that it can be shared with other applications when required - is becoming increasingly important. Leadership in this area is up for grabs."

The 451 Group has found that enhanced data management capabilities could soon become a primary motivating factor for deploying grids in the first place - promising simplified administration and more cost-effective and efficient use of storage and processing resources. Most early adopters have far-reaching plans to extend their grid activities from initial beachheads to multi-application and cross-organizational grids; however, without proper data management tools in place, applications will not perform well on top of a grid infrastructure, and the expected cost and performance advantages of implementing a grid will not be realized.

The 451 Group's analysts believe that managing data on grids requires a combination of caching, data movement, data quality, data streaming, data transformation, global resource namespaces, replication and storage volume virtualization, depending on the application and system architecture. Vendors have taken widely differing approaches to this problem, from tackling one aspect alone to attempting to build a complete stack, and from very grid-specific solutions to making a deliberate effort to not even mention grids.

"As it stands now, no single approach - with the exception that a virtualized environment is necessary - or single vendor or group has a leadership position, and no one can address data management on every part of the stack," said Steve Wallage, Director of Research at The 451 Group. "Grid middleware and scheduling vendors themselves have not ignored data management issues, especially as they seek to address a broader piece of the grid 'stack,' penetrate new markets and move beyond high-performance computing grids. The problem is that data management is not part of their core skill set."