Alec,

There is a venerable IT saying that you must keep uppermost in your mind:

"Data will ALWAYS expand to occupy all available storage space."

I imagine that the reason why you haven't been swamped with helpful responses
from this list is because there are no good, acceptable ideas for overcoming
this problem.

Imposing file storage limits when the system is set up and strictly enforcing
those limits with the full support of senior management might work, but in my
20 years experience it is usually senior managers who are responsible for much
of the problem in the first place! They may agree with the idea in theory, but
as soon as any of "their" data storage is threatened with pruning it is a very
different story.

The only sure way to reduce the amount of data stored is to reduce the data
storage capacity, and you don't hear of that happenning very often (i.e. not at
all).      :-)

Perhaps one possible solution may be to impose charge-back or cost recovery on
the various business units of you organisation whose data you store and backup.
Charge them for everything - disks, maintenance and support contracts,
NetWorker licences and annual support renewals, tape drives and tape purchases,
etc. - if you are not doing so already. It is amazing how prudent people can
become when faced with the real cost of their data storage and backup.

Regards,

Peter M


Quoting Alec Skinner <alec.skinner AT HSBC DOT COM>:

> ...
> ...
> the primary purpose of this investigation is to find ways of reducing the
> amount of data stored.
>
> Have any of you come up with any good ideas that are working at your
> sites?  Any suggestions will be greatly received.
>

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