STORAGE

Sun Microsystems today expanded its open, standards-based family of enterprise storage management solutions with updates to its Sun StorageTek Enterprise Storage Manager portfolio, including Sun StorageTek Business Analytics 5.0 and Sun StorageTek Operations Manager 4.1 software. As two key components of the Sun StorageTek Enterprise Storage Manager family, the new solutions provide customers with enhanced functionality to more efficiently manage their storage infrastructure to meet business objectives. The Sun Enterprise Storage Management Portal enables customers to create customized management and reporting views so that each line of business owner can manage the storage environment according to their specific requirements. Sun is the only vendor to offer a comprehensive operational tool for administrators and a reporting and capacity-planning tool for managers under a single, integrated customizable view. "IT departments are under constant pressure to be an asset rather than just a cost center. It's only with real visibility into the infrastructure that customers can manage storage like a business, using intelligence to maximize utilization, anticipate new capacity requirements, and ultimately reduce capital and operating expenses," said Nancy Hurley, senior director, Storage Software Marketing, Data Management Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Sun's Enterprise Storage Manager software offers customers the industry's most comprehensive set of enterprise storage management tools and enables administrators and executives to speak a common language that ultimately impacts the bottom line." Sun is delivering the tools to align storage administrators and their business counterparts through effective management of storage resources that help lower capital costs, reduce operating expenses and increase quality of service. Sun StorageTek Business Analytics 5.0, formerly the Storability Global Storage Manager, goes beyond traditional reporting by transforming the data it collects into actionable information that managers can use to make decisions. It allows customers to view technical information in a business context and gain a broader understanding of the impact that IT decisions will have on the business as a whole. New features in Sun StorageTek Business Analytics 5.0 software include: - Enhanced NAS Support -- Reports on hard and soft quotas and notifies administrators when quotas or volumes are reaching capacity. This release adds support for Network Appliance's Data OnTap 7.0. - Expanded Orphan Storage Reporting -- Identifies individual volumes that are orphaned, and provides guidelines for repairing the underlying configuration problem. - Additional Platform and Device Support – Expanded to include the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), Red Hat Enterprise Linux, QLogic switches, and IBM and ADIC tape libraries. SMI-S client support for disk arrays and tape libraries has been added to the previously certified support for SMI-S-compliant fabric and host devices. Sun StorageTek Operations Manager 4.1 software provides powerful storage area management capabilities for the SAN administrator via a common interface that works across multi-vendor environments, reducing training costs. The software's standards-based Web services architecture delivers investment protection, and improves administrator productivity by automating routine tasks such as provisioning. Application-specific modules allow the administrator to view the entire application path, from the database all the way to the underlying array spindles, and examine configuration details, performance data, dependency analysis and utilization statistics. Version 4.1 adds expanded platform support, including IBM DS arrays and Sun Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices.