Troubled economy won't slow data projects

Data storage projects are one area that may be immune from the economic downturn, .Several attendees interviewed at the Storage Networking World conference last week in Dallas said that storage projects are so essential that they likely will be spared from budget cuts.The rationale for continuing such projects is that the amount of data that users need to store continues to grow, with no end in sight.For example, Gary Pedersen, storage manager for the city of Plano, Texas, said the IT department there is moving forward on projects as planned. "Data is just coming out of everybody's ears," he said. "We have to keep up with it or we'll sink."Plano's government is looking to fully revamp its storage infrastructure with new hardware and storage-area networks (SAN). "We're beyond adding on," Pedersen said. Cost is also a consideration, though. One possible move, he said, is a shift from Fibre Channel SAN technology to less expensive alternatives, such as iSCSI.The conference is jointly run by Computerworld and the Storage Networking Industry Association.