n Standards: Since the storage industry is yet to agree on a single standard, the best an enterprise can do is to go for products and solutions that supports all the prevalent standards and protocols and is interoperable with products and solutions of the maximum number of storage and networking vendors. In other words, a solution or product must be interoperable with heterogeneous server, operating systems, storage software products, network connectivity elements, and other devices ranging from HBAs and drivers to switches and tape subsystems.

n Scalability: Today storage needs are growing at a fast speed owing to a number of factors. This means that not only should one deploy solutions keeping in mind the needs of the next two-three years but also a solution that is easily scalable. And it must be optimized to meet demands for capacity, new applications, and service levels.

n Flexibility: A storage solution must offer ease of integration, installation, configuration and operation.

n Look for These as well: Look for the backup and restore speed offered by the solution. See if the storage software has a centralized cross platform enterprise administration for all platforms from a web-styled interface? Does it have integrated disaster recovery & bare metal restore? A solution must have industry-leading consolidation capabilities and advanced software functionality and availability and data integrity to provide end-to-end information protection