Storage /

Automated storage provisioning

By Anne Skamarock
Network World Storage Newsletter, 11/12/01

The hot new topic in storage management these days is automated storage provisioning. Several new start-ups are taking their lead from the telecommunications industry, which has invested millions of dollars automating their ability to " install " new services at a home or business.

In the " old " days, when customers wanted to be hooked up to the telephone network, a service representative would be dispatched to the local switch to turn on the connection. Today, the telephone company pushes a couple of buttons and the customer is all set. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the costs savings in this scenario.

But, wait! There is more. In the telecommunications market, provisioning also created flow-through which integrates front and back office capabilities, such as billing. When networks become very large and complex, this level of automation is essential in managing and scaling the network. It is the same with large storage-area networks (SANs).

Let's extend the telephone company example to storage. Today, when IT personnel " install " new storage services for an application, the staff must first determine the application requirements for the data, such as performance, capacity required plus potential growth, data availability, data protection, etc. For this example, I will assume the SAN is in place, that is, connectivity exists. I will also assume the storage subsystem has been researched and purchased so that only the provisioning of the data path is required. Simple enough, you think.

First, the staff must configure the storage to produce the best performance, as well as data protection capabilities for the specific application. Next, personnel must create LUNs (Logical Unit Numbers) to which the host system interfaces. Depending on the storage subsystem, this could take hours or minutes. Once the LUNs exist, IT must assure the routes through the network have the level of availability required and may have to install alternate pathing if high availability is an application requirement. Then, when everything is hooked up, the staff must test the environment to verify the functionality before putting the application on-line. Overall, the IT application's " time to market " is in the two- to three-week range when management is pushing for one to two days.

Granted, to simplify and streamline some of these tasks, IT has implemented process and procedures that take some of the time risk out of the equation. For example, the same type of storage and infrastructure is used, regardless of its performance characteristics.

Software will never be able to perform all the tasks required in storage provisioning, however, tools are becoming available to automate and simplify 80% of the grunt work required in provisioning and continued management and support of these storage networks. InterSAN and CreekPath are two companies that plan to launch storage provisioning software within the next quarter, while Sun already offers its Highground line of products.

These tools, to differing degrees, help IT staff members understand their current environment, both from a component level and also from a data path and storage capacity standpoint. Then, given defined policies, can provision data paths to storage for the application either automatically or by simply pushing a couple of buttons on a graphical user interface. Of course these products, and the ones that follow, will provide varying degrees of both depth and breadth of management and automation capabilities. The good news is that they are coming. Without these tools, the reality of a shared storage environment - the promise of SANs - cannot be realized.