Minuteman's problems also featured a few extra twists that we hoped would
help differentiate the responses we received. For example, some of Minuteman's
storage was shared within a server cluster, and as some companies have
discovered, many storage-management products do not handle this configuration
well: They treat as unique the storage that each server sees. This, in turn,
introduces a flaw in capacity and usage calculations, because each server in the
cluster sees the same storage.
Minuteman also used many storage platforms capable of native management
solely via a self-articulated Web page. We wanted to see how vendors would
consolidate this data so that managing storage wouldn't feel like surfing the
Web.
Our savvy IT manager at Minuteman also sought a solution that wouldn't charge
him for functionality he didn't need or use. This is a common complaint; with
some SRM suites, managers are forced to license many modules they don't use to
obtain the few that they do.
Finally, though our fictional IT manager was open to suggestions about
infrastructure revisions that might improve his environment, he preferred a
storage-management recommendation that wouldn't require a forklift upgrade of
his infrastructure. With many storage-management products, limitations in device
support (array, switch or server platforms manageable via the product) or
topology support (for direct-attached, network-attached or SAN-attached) may be
unclear from vendor-supplied literature, forcing the customer to shelve the
software or make costly infrastructure modifications.
A perusal of the responses from the three vendors revealed common themes and
messages regarding some principles of storage management. For example, all three
vendors stressed support for heterogeneous storage platforms, server operating
environments and topologies. In CA's case, we had to visit a Web list to track
the constantly changing set of target devices, firmware revisions and host bus
adapters, for instance, supported in its BrightStor suite. Fujitsu Softek
promised to support whatever servers and storage platforms users chose to
deploy. Storability's bid listed the platforms it supports--a brave move but
perhaps foolhardy because it revealed its lack of support for some of the
devices deployed by Minuteman. Storability provided no explanation for how it
would support nonlisted devices. Only Computer Associates showed clear support
for all the platforms listed in our RFI.
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
