A Modular Approach To Storage Resource Management

As with most acronyms that have high "buzzword" value, storage resource management (SRM) can be defined in a variety of ways to describe a broad range of functionalities, many of which go beyond administering storage. However, in the end, it is all about one solution to one problem, much like a hammer and a nail. The problem (the nail) is the juggling act of trying to increase availability and reliability of critical data while simultaneously reducing costs. The solution (the hammer) is a set of software modules that optimizes the monitoring, reporting, and management of existing storage and server resources.

The typical SRM solution encompasses a broad range of functionality, including the processes and technologies required for capacity planning, discovery, configuration, monitoring, provisioning, performance, and reporting of storage devices and the solution's associated infrastructure. However, in an effort to make SRM everything to everybody, a comprehensive solution can be overkill in practice and overly expensive in procurement and maintenance. In trying to alleviate the problems of a large-scale deployment, the solution can actually amplify the negatives in terms of cost and the IT resources needed to properly implement the system to meet your company's unique needs.

SRM is theoretically designed to solve what is perhaps the biggest ongoing challenge facing today's IT administrator—how to control the soaring costs of storage management. At the heart of this lies a paradox. How can it be that as the cost per terabyte of storage becomes lower, the cost of administering the storage becomes higher? The answer is inefficiency. Most administrators are constrained to use the same tools for management of 20 terabytes as they previously used for 20 gigabytes. As things stand, it's like a being given a free car—the catch is that gas is $200 a gallon. Unchecked—or unmonitored—the data explosion will soon be completely out of control.