The Year 2005 was distinguished by 50 security incidents compromising approximately 50 million pieces of sensitive information. Already it is the worst year in history for database hacks. High-profile data theft incidents, such as those experienced by ChoicePoint and CardSystems, exemplify what industry veterans already know: traditional security measures, such as firewalls, do not provide in-depth security at the application level.

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is a complex, cross-functional, and interdepartmental strategy, a set of practices for managing the storing, access, and protection of business information in alignment with service-level and cost-of-ownership objectives. A successful ILM foundation enables IT organizations to align storage assets and costs with the applications that matter most to the business, while delivering a more cost-effective level of service to the applications and data that are not as critical.

The specter of multimillion-dollar fines for regulatory noncompliance is a definite motivator when it comes to data retention. And there are equally drastic consequences, including negative impact on customer service, costs, productivity, and speed to market if data is inaccessible.

Side by side with their high-end SCSI and Fibre Channel arrays, Serial ATA (SATA) arrays are now coming onto the storage solutions market from the quality players like Sun, HP, EMC, IBM, and Hitachi.