With its acquisition of StorageTek, Sun is uniquely positioned to help organizations meet one of the greatest challenges facing IT — managing, storing, and retrieving data that is growing to unprecedented volumes.

Join Sun's Fidelma Russo, vice president of Network Storage Product Development and Rod Dekoning, distinguished engineer and chief architect for Sun's Data Management Group, for an informative Q&A on the new data storage landscape, and how StorageTek, tiered storage, and "creation to cremation" technologies can help IT meet the challenge.

Inner Circle (IC): What is the biggest data storage challenge facing IT managers today?

Fidelma Russo (FR): With the volume of data generated by cell phones, PDAs, online stock transactions, and all the other sources, the biggest challenges are: How do people manage all the data? Where do they put the data? How do they make sure that they're complying with all of the regulations in effect today? And, if they archive the data, are they sure they know where it is? Can they produce it if a regulator or a client needs to see it? The main challenge is data management — the security of the data, the privacy of the data and the ability to access the data when and where they need it.

Rod Dekoning (RD): I completely concur. Today, data — as well as the information it represents — is involved in every aspect of business. Plus, as a result of all the regulations, organizations continue to generate more data that has to be stored and managed in a secure way to protect clients and the organization itself. As a result, there is this huge volume of data that is coming in and a substantial need to develop more efficient, more effective ways to manage it. On top of that, IT budgets are basically staying flat at the same time that the volume of data is increasing.