3PAR® (NYSE: PAR), the leading global provider of utility storage, announced today that recent research conducted by TheInfoPro (TIP) as part of its Wave 11 Storage Study reflects the growing importance of thin provisioning to Fortune-1000 and Midsize Enterprise storage end users. The number of respondents rating thin provisioning as an important virtualization technology has increased over the last three waves of the study, up more than 30% between Wave 9 and Wave 11. In total, 87% of Wave 11 respondents indicated that they considered thin provisioning an important virtualization technology. According to a recent survey conducted by 3PAR, 50% of 3PAR Utility Storage customers surveyed said that over the past 12 months they have saved at least $50,000 in up-front capacity purchases with 3PAR Thin Provisioning.
"With the current downturn in the economy, end users are indicating that much of their efforts are being focused on consolidation, refresh, and improving storage utilization—reclaiming under-used and overallocated storage—thereby maximizing assets and minimizing spending," said Robert Stevenson, Managing Director of Storage Research for TIP. "Our research shows that one of the key technologies in use to maximize these efforts is thin provisioning, which has moved up from a 'nice to have' feature to a 'must have' for intelligent storage utilization management."
3PAR has built a comprehensive strategy for allowing customers to start thin, get thin, and stay thin. This includes the use of 3PAR Thin Provisioning software to reduce storage capacity requirements by as much as 75%. 3PAR also recently introduced new InServ T-Class Storage Servers featuring Thin Built In™ technology. These third-generation utility storage arrays are the first in the industry to incorporate a "fat-to-thin" volume conversion mechanism right into silicon to ensure high rates of capacity utilization while maintaining industry-leading performance levels. To help customers get thin and stay thin, 3PAR and Symantec also recently announced a development partnership to introduce Thin Reclamation—a granular, intelligent, and automated mechanism for reclaiming unused storage capacity based on the sharing of intelligence gathered at the file system level, another industry first.
“This year saw many vendors scrambling to introduce products to meet the demand created by 3PAR Thin Provisioning,” said David Scott, 3PAR President and CEO. “But not all thin provisioning is created equal. As the first storage vendor to build thin technology into our storage architecture, 3PAR has continued to demonstrate leadership in thin provisioning innovation. Vendors just now coming out with what they claim to be 'thin' solutions are actually just offering bolt-on products that simply cannot compete with 3PAR’s incumbency in this key technology area."
To preview findings of TheInfoPro Wave 11 Storage Study findings, visit http://www.theinfopro.net/public/home/document.php?dA=storage