Below is a simple worksheet that lets you work backward to determine how much improvement you would
require from a new disk system to make investing in one worthwhile. Use your own numbers and be as
conservative as you like. For salaries and benefits, a ballpark figure is fine. Benefits typically are
15-20% of salary. Any investment that takes 12 months or less to payback is automatically a
"buy" signal for financial managers. In this example, it takes less than a one percent
improvement in productivity to justify the investment. Payback is measured in days and weeks instead
of years. Make the following calculations to determine what kind of payback to expect from your new
storage system:
(1) Number of storage users:
______
(2) Average salary and benefits cost for each user:
$______
(3) Estimated annual cost of the new high-speed storage system:
$______
(4) Estimated annual cost of your existing storage system:
$______
(5) Calculate the net cost of upgrading to higher-speed storage: (3)-(4)
$______
(6) Determine how much faster the new system would be:
______%
(7) Calculate the net cost of the higher-speed system per user: (5)x(1)/100%:
$______
(8) Percent time savings required to pay back investment in one year: (7)/(2)x100%:
______%
(9) Average percent of time spent performing computer tasks:
______%
(10) Minimum speed improvement required for one year payback: (8)/(9)x100%:
______
(11) Estimated improvement better than minimum improvement? (6)>(10): YES/ NO
If YES, Investment is a GO decision.
Deciding Whether or Not You Need SRM
Storage Resource Management is an emerging category of applications that describe the detailed
monitoring, alerting, reporting and trending of storage resources, including RAID, disks, partitions,
file systems and files. It allows for central administration (usually through a Web interface) of a
network's storage resources rather than just administration of a specific process such as backup.
Do you need SRM ? Try to answer the following questions in less than 10 minutes. If you can't do
this, perhaps you've underestimated your need for SRM.
(1) How much storage do you have on all
of your servers?
(2) How much storage will you need in the next three months, six months and/or
next year? How do you know?
(3) Which of your disk partitions are almost out of free space?
(4) How much of your storage is not being accessed and how much could be reclaimed?
(5)
Which users are consuming too much disk space and which of their files could be removed?
(6) What proof do you have that all of your files are being backed up?
If you are planning to make sweeping organizational changes, initially there will be a sense of
urgency to complete the changes, but stay focused. Instead of rushing change, develop an action plan.
1. Communicate with employees. Tell employees why the changes are necessary. People are not
afraid of change. They are, however, afraid of changes with no rational explanation. Explain how the
changes fit into the company's long-range vision.
2. Monitor the pace of change. Changing processes too quickly can lead to confusion. Changes in
one area may have consequences in others. Too many changes at once is a recipe for disaster.
3. Let employees be proactive. Research suggests that people are more supportive of actions
that they "own" (helped create). Also, keep employees informed of progress, so they
associate it with the changes.
4. Keep published status reports. Some organizations link compensation with changes implemented
effectively. Status reports also ensure employees will continue to work on these changes.
When developing an action plan, use a worksheet and include the following: describe the problem,
identify the proposed action, name the person responsible for implementation and status reporting,
include a starting date and proposed completion date, describe how the action plan's
effectiveness will be evaluated.
Tom McGoldrick is Manager, Consulting Services, in Edina, MN, for NCS (www.ncs.com).
