Independent research study finds Network Appliance IP SAN storage solutions can provide compelling positive return on investment

Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) released a new commissioned Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact(tm) (TEI) study that estimates a sample organisation using Network Appliance IP SAN has a risk-adjusted 116% return on investment (ROI) over a three-year period, a break-even point (payback period) within 13.5 months and a risk-adjusted cost savings of approximately $650,000 in a three-year window. The total three-year cost savings for a sample IP SAN customer related specifically to improvements in end-user productivity due to faster restores of Microsoft Exchange, CRM and SQL Server data to end users.

Patrick Rogers, vice president of marketing at Network Appliance said: "Forrester's TEI study validates what our current IP SAN customers already know-NetApp helps them leverage existing IT investments and lower their total cost of ownership without compromising performance, manageability, or reliability".

The study was based on in-depth interviews with six organisations using Network Appliance IP SAN solutions, including support and services. Based on the interviews of these six organisations, there were common values within each of the users and each experienced the following benefits related to its investment in NetApp IP SAN solutions:

-Offers the advantages of a SAN without the complexity and expense of Fibre Channel
-Allows their organisations to leverage existing IP network investments, including familiar network management tools
-Offers a cost-effective alternative to direct-attached storage (DAS) in areas of the IT infrastructure where Fibre Channel would be economically unfeasible
-Significant cost savings over DAS relative to storage installation, consolidation, maintenance and streamlined data management processes

From this study, Forrester Consulting found IP SANs are ideal for consolidating relatively large numbers of smaller, less powerful application servers. Further, Forrester found that NetApp IP SAN solutions solved a number of problems or issues that are summarised below in order of relative importance to its interviewed customers:

-Reduced operating costs - this was the primary reason cited by the six organisations for investing in NetApp IP SAN solutions 
-Simplified storage administration and management and streamlined data management processes
-Improved storage system reliability
-Scalability allows for storage capacity additions without downtime
-Increased performance

Full details of the study and economic analysis are available at:  <http://www.netapp.com/tech_library/ftp/analyst/ar1024.pdf>.