E-Scanning Fuels Storage

Images are storage-intensive files. This simple fact hasn't changed since the advent of document imaging. Now that scan-to-email and scan-to-the-Web solutions are gaining popularity, they're adding to the barrage of email and Web content that has storage demands growing at a breakneck pace.

A decade ago, the largest corporations and government agencies were pioneering production document imaging systems that captured high-volume, mission-critical documents such as insurance claims, account applications and tax returns. These images were archived almost exclusively on 12-inch optical and 5.25-inch magneto optical jukeboxes, and they were accessible only through these specialized systems.

Document imaging has long since become affordable to mainstream businesses, and it has been opened up to the enterprise with decentralized and remote scanning of a wider range of documents. Along the way, storage options have become more plentiful, with CD, DVD and ever-more-competitive RAID/tape combos gaining popularity.

In many cases, the need for imaging has been reduced by the advent of electronic authoring and collaboration tools. Email volumes, for example, have surpassed 3.5 billion messages per day in the U.S. alone, and that volume is expected to reach 8.0 billion per day by 2002. The Web, meanwhile, is offering e-alternatives to the high-volume forms that still drive document imaging.

Despite these trends, paper remains. Fax traffic continues to grow at 5 percent per year, and an IDC study found that 85 percent of the 440-plus billion pages faxed each year originated on paper. In another sign of paper's persistence, overnight letter deliveries generate revenues of about $30 billion worldwide, and the U.S. Postal Service garners another $13 billion for express mail alone.

Is it any wonder that scan-to-email and scan-to-the-Web solutions are all the rage? Web compatibility has change the identity of the portable document format (PDF) from a means of faithfully reproducing content to the de facto choice for online document repositories. PDF and HTML conversion software is routinely bundled with capture software and scanners.

The next wave will be fueled by user-friendly walk-up devices that let you scan to email and the Web. There is a growing list of HP Sender-type devices and alternatives such as Adobe Acrobat Messenger (see "Scan to Email or Straight to the Web," June, page 21). Scanning is also taking root in the digital copier/printer market, where it has long been supported but usually forgotten.

Xerox, for one, says its machines are now being connected to networks in more than half of all installations, and customers as diverse as U.S. West, the University of Southern California, the Wisconsin State Assembly and Microsoft are sharing images via email and the Web. Canon, too, is supporting more scanning, and their software partner, Simplify Development, recently changed its name to "eCopy" to reflect the opportunity in e-scanning (for more on multifunction scanning, see "ScanStation," page 19).

With all the documents now being posted online and attached to email, it's no surprise that storage demands are skyrocketing. But as you'll discover in this month's lead story in our Super Storage Guide, "Storing for the Enterprise" (page 30), the Internet is helping to provide answers to some of the challenges of its own creation.

Internet connectivity is fostering centralized and remote administration of storage area networks, network attached storage and a variety of devices scattered across geographically distributed organizations. It's all a part of a fertile market that is reinventing seemingly mature technologies, such as imaging and storage, with new ideas.

—Doug Henschen, Editor-in-Chief