Effective Storage Utilisation.
SRM (Storage Resource Manager) helps save money through advanced discovery, tracking, analysis and optimisation of a company’s storage resources. Companies can postpone or reduce the purchase rate of new storage capacity by identifying underutilised capacity or effectively consolidating existing storage hardware.
Analysis of Data and Storage Usage and Protection.
SRM provides storage capacity utilisation analysis. Data usage analysis, coupled with the provisioning capabilities of the Storage Management suite of products, is cost-effective because it optimises storage capacity utilisation across the entire storage infrastructure.
Storage Network Health.
Maximise storage efficiency by obtaining comprehensive views from disk platters up to file and application levels. Assess risks associated with data by mapping the weakest point in the data path.
Full Data Path Analysis.
SRM, used with SAN Manager, delivers data path and storage utilisation analysis to identify and assess risk to data.
Manage Storage From Laptop to Mainframe.
Obtain a consolidated, bird’s-eye view of enterprise storage assets, including Direct-Attached Storage (DAS), NAS and SAN and the mainframe in a single console, for effective management.
Global Management, Viewing and Navigation.
Global resources across various distributed networks can all be managed via a single consolidated management console. Defined storage services and policies can be applied across managed networks.
Policy-Based Problem Remediation.
SRM provides comprehensive policy-based problem remediation and support for best practice management of storage resources. Actions invoked by capacity threshold and exception-based events can be used to optimise efficiency of storage devices and applications to support uninterrupted data availability and continuity across business processes.
Threshold-Based or Event-Oriented Automation.
Resource conditions are automatically monitored and the appropriate actions can be triggered to comply with user-defined policies.
Centralised Management of Backup Operations.
SRM provides centralised management of multiple backup and recovery tools to optimise any company’s day to day data protection operations, resulting in reduced labor costs and staffing needs.
Data Classification.
Data objects can be logically grouped by attributes such as file size/type/age or other criteria so that data can be profiled for the management of its life cycle. This unique feature facilitates policy-based management and storage chargeback.
Comprehensive Built-in Reporting.
“Out-of-the-box" reports provide indepth information on every aspect of the storage environment, including domains, servers, volumes, files and owners. Users can customise queries for ad-hoc needs. New usability enhancements include a dynamic reporter that enables batch-mode email alerting generation through integrated SMTP email facility and built-in capability to convert reports into PDF or Excel format.
Storage Chargeback.
Users can leverage enterprise-scale storage chargeback capabilities of the Unicenter Service Management (formerly iCan Provider Suite™) to measure and manage storage usage by organisational users and departments. Storage consumption metrics for different users and user groups can be quantified for metering, accounting, billing by different rate plans, and invoicing for effective cost-planning purposes. Storage costs can be allocated by user, department or line of business to influence and manage behaviors.
Leverage Past, Present and Future Storage and IT Investments.
The ubiquitous cross-platform and multivendor support of SRM provides standards-based integration, unified and effective management of storage assets.
Platform and Volume Manager Support.
Support for server operating systems, file systems and volume managers: – Linux (Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, SUSE) – Network Appliance Data ONTAP – NetWare – UNIX (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris) – Windows – z/OS – Sun Solstice DiskSuite and ZFS on Solaris – SYMANTEC (VERITAS) Volume Manager on Solaris and HP-UX
Storage RAID Array Support.
Redundant Array Inexpensive Disks (RAID) array support provides storage consumption, availability and allocation metrics on disk arrays through support for SNIA’s industry standard-based SMI-S providers and/or the vendor APIs.
– Dell PowerVault (PV630F & PV650F) – EMC Symmetrix DMX, Symmetrix, and CLARiiON – Engenio (LSI Logic) – Fujitsu Siemens FibreCat – Hitachi Freedom Storage — Lightning and Thunder – HP StorageWorks XP and EVA – IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server, DS, and FAStT – StorageTek OPENstorage D-series and BladeStor BladeCtlr B-series – SGI InfiniteStorage TP – SUN StorEdge 6000
NAS Support for Network Appliance, Windows Powered NAS or Linux-Based Filers.
Support includes automatic discovery, centralised monitoring and management of multiple filers. – Linux-based NAS – Network Appliance – Windows Powered NAS including Windows Storage Server 2003
Cluster Server Support for Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS).
Support for managed servers configured in clustered environments using Microsoft Cluster Server.
Centralised Management of Storage- Intensive Applications.
SRM provides a single, global management console for administering storage intensive applications.
Database Resource Management.
Support for Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase. Centralised storage analysis and planning functions help users manage the future growth and performance of Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase databases. This capability enables summary report generation, space monitoring, trend analysis and automatic alerts when an instance is down or running low on storage space, or over-allocation of space to databases has occurred. Summary report coverage includes database instances, tablespaces, data files, segments, and extents.
Messaging/Collaboration Resource Management.
Support for Microsoft Exchange.
Support provides centralised reporting, analysis, management and planning functions for Microsoft Exchange servers and mailboxes. Users can optimise performance and accurately plan for messaging application and user growth.
Process Automation Management.
The integration with Process Automation Manager facilitates automated storage process workflow management in addressing and handling storage-critical events.
Secure Applications and Storage Assets.
SRM can perform a variety of discovery, trending and analysis of business applications and their related storage assets in a non-disruptive manner.
Agent-Free Data Collection.
Agentless technology provides data collection without disruption to production applications. It also complements more granular collections from Smart Agent and fast file-scanning technologies for distributed and parallel processing for large-scale environments.
Role-Based Access.
Role-based access and enhanced security enable the creation of different access and view privileges for different user types.
Secure Communications.
Integrated Secure Shell (SSH) and RSH-based communication replaces UNIX/Telnet communication in remote UNIX agent install and monitoring of NetApp filers.
High Performance and Ease-of-Use.
Smart Agent coupled with fast and deep file-scanning technologies enable distributed and parallel processing as well as policy-defined synchronous and asynchronous data collection and file queries across supported storage resources. Large scale storage environments are managed with minimal impact to IT and administrative staffing. Intuitive, customizable user interface facilitates ease-of-use and an enhanced user experience to improve IT staff productivity, enable smooth and rapid deployment of key storage assets and empower IT staff to maximise the investment of each storage asset.
Executive-Level View of Up-to-Date Status of Storage Network Health.
High-level, business-oriented information on the managed storage environment is dashboard accessible.
Web-Based Management Interface.
Real-time access to mission-critical information and events is provided through CA’s industry-leading portal technology, shipped integrated.
Smart Agent Technology.
Smart agents provide distributed and parallel processing and policy-defined asynchronous and synchronous modes of data collection and file query. Data is collected at predefined or near realtime schedules when connected to SRM server (synchronous) or collected and stored remotely when disconnected (asynchronous) as in the case of networking problems, based on policies created. Data is subsequently transmitted back when connection is reestablished.
Simplified Installation and Configuration.
Wizards simplify and automate the installation and configuration of storage objects to be managed. Managed servers and storage devices are automatically discovered and managed, maximizing administrators’ overall productivity. Service Builder Wizards provide templates for easy creation of SRM services to automate actions that remedy events affecting storage performance.