A recent report published by IDC concerning the issue of European enterprises mastering data protection found that a quarter of respondents did not have a disaster recovery plan in place.

One of the big complaints for defending the absence of a disaster recovery strategy was that there was a lack of data-storage technology available on the market.

The report rightly concluded that it is not a lack of technology that is responsible for the absence of a disaster recovery plan, but that the IT industry has not informed the market about what is available.

The good news is that this lack of knowledge on the part of end-users presents a big opportunity to resellers to educate and reap the rewards.

With compliance and Sarbanes Oxley firmly lodged in the consciousness of IT managers, and Meta Group reporting that estimated demand for storage products has risen steadily during the past 18 months, the market is growing.

Decision-makers need to be informed of the solutions and technology available and then make a decision to buy.

With so many vendors offering a huge range of storage, the technology available can be confusing – not just to end-users, but also to resellers.

There needs to be a simple solution offered by vendors to their partners that saves money by minimising the time needed for configuration and pricing, while ensuring complete accuracy in their proposals for customers.

Cost can still be a big issue in holding back the market. In the case of SANs, this is a big factor. Two reasons for companies deciding not to implement SANs were the cost of the hardware and the cost of implementation. However, the main reason was the lack of a perceived business benefit.

Resellers have an opportunity to educate customers on the benefits and cost savings possible with using network storage solutions.

Storage needs are always on the increase, and growing concerns over business continuity make high-speed network storage, storage management and backup, recovery and archiving increasingly important.

Companies are now reviewing capital expenditure, and the focus must be placed upon making better use of existing systems and optimising performance.

As more sophisticated systems become readily available, resellers will need to focus more attention on business requirements and the solutions available.

Then not only will the market be informed, they will also be buying.

Richard Ruddlesden is sales director for northern Europe at storage vendor Quantum.