Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC)'s new initiative, Storage United (announced June 12) aims to create a simplified, integrated storage-management ecosystem. Symantec's efforts underscore the enterprise's ongoing struggle to manage storage despite continuing exponential growth and low utilization rates, and highlight the rise of information stewardship as a key organizing principle.

Information stewardship demands that for every byte of data in the enterprise, policies are set and enforced to define how and by whom data is collected, viewed, and modified, and how it is to be stored, retrieved, and protected against all threats. Sixty-two percent of participants in Nemertes' Information Stewardship benchmark identified this cluster of issues as very important or vital.

Symantec justifies its storage initiative three ways. First, growth: storage growth continues unabated while storage utilization still hovers well below 50%, often because enterprises deploy multiple SAN silos, or due to intentional SAN sprawl (spreading data across more spindles) intended to improve performance. Second, complexity: storage infrastructure, including the software interfaces between servers and storage, is fragmented and difficult to manage across vendor boundaries. Storage management needs to be organized comprehensively and storage managers need help from tools. Third, business alignment: in a world rapidly adopting the IT services management (ITSM) philosophy, being able to manage storage as a set of services to the enterprise is critical. 

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