Disk server firm DataCore Software has unleashed the results of its global roundtable sessions with storage chiefs.

DataCore CEO George Teixeira said: "The knowledge that we have derived by these is revealing and we feel that it is important to share this with the data storage community at large to help further best practices in the industry."

So, hold on to yer switches, here's a top 10 of what to lose sleep over:

1. Keep it simple and avoid complexity.
2. Flexibility is key. Avoid vendor lock-in and proprietary hardware.
3. Document your storage area network (SAN) environment.
4. Testing is good.
5. People, product and procedure are all equally important.
6. Good fences make good neighbouurs - segregate internal and public storage.
7. Deploy a SAN with advanced storage management features to get more than connectivity.
8. Deploy a SAN solution with redundancy throughout.
9. Future-proof for storage management.
10. Keep it simple and avoid complexity for backups and disaster recovery.

More details here. ®