Compaq on Monday took the wraps off its strategy for managing enterprise storage. The modular-based strategy, embracing open SANs (storage area networks) as well as RAID (redundant array of independent disks) systems, will allow companies to build up their storage infrastructure as they grow, according to Compaq.
SANs are back-end networks that link up storage devices through technologies such as SCSI (small computer system interface) and Fibre Channel.
Known as Enterprise Network Storage Management (ENSM), Compaq's initiative describes a way to manage open SAN storage company-wide. Today's strategy supports the company's Enterprise Network Storage Architecture, or ENSA, which focuses on standardizing Web-based user interfaces and management appliances.
Compaq's storage initiative is the company's answer to a sea change currently sweeping the whole storage market sector which is concerned with making the technology cheaper and more flexible in meeting users' requirements.
To put flesh on the bones of Compaq's initiative, the company announced a raft of new products Monday:
The SANworks Enterprise Network Storage Manager Web portal, available in the fourth quarter of this year, will provide a central place for managing all of a company's storage requirements. The portal will link up to both Compaq's SANworks products as well as third-party software including Computer Associates' Unicenter TNG, IBM's Tivoli Enterprise and Hewlett-Packard's OpenView.The SANworks Management Appliance, directly hooked up to the SAN fabric, can carry out the centralized management and monitoring of SAN elements without the involvement of host computers, to both simplify operations and cut costs.Residing on the SANworks Management Appliance are several applications. The SANworks Open SAN Manager provides an interface for the Open SAN, allowing users to see, configure and monitor the SAN. The SANworks Resource Monitor offers event notification for StorageWorks switches and arrays, both raising SAN availability and cutting the average time-to-repair. The SANworks Storage Allocation Reporter enables the billing of SAN storage as a utility service, with the software's pricing model working out charges on a per-gigabyte, per-time-period basis.StorageWorks modular disk RAID arrays -- the MA8000 and the ESA12000 -- provide greater capacity, scalability and flexibility for storage consolidation on heterogeneous or homogeneous SANs. The systems can support a maximum of 132 drives in a single cabinet. The arrays also support the Linux and Windows 2000 operating systems.Compaq also announced Monday that its SANworks and StorageWorks products support Sun Microsystems' Solaris 7.0 Unix operating system.
