* A new class of SAN-management tools
SAN management: A new view
IT professionals responsible for managing storage-area networks face a daunting challenge. Storage today is an integral element in the interconnected IT-service delivery chain, and applications are spread across multiple arrays, switches and servers, often from different vendors.
In such heterogeneous environments, the old device-centric approach to SAN management is limited. More comprehensive, vendor-neutral tools are needed that complement traditional storage resource management (SRM) tools.
This need was highlighted in a recent Gartner “Magic Quadrant” report on SRM and SAN-management software that noted: “Consolidation in the storage management market has resulted in suites of products that, while providing a large number of features, still lack specific capabilities that customers need.” It goes on to say, “Keeping critical applications running requires consistent data access. This puts pressure on IT and storage administrators to ensure capacity availability, quick recovery and proactive infrastructure management.”
A new class of SAN-management tools is emerging to address the challenge of assuring application performance in mixed storage environments. These tools focus on managing SANs’ application-level performance, not just device-level performance. This lets IT departments manage SANs according to applications’ service level and allocate storage resources appropriately based on how critical each application is.
For more on this story, please click here.
