Ask The Expert: An Overview Of Storage Resource Management By Mike Reynolds, Symantec Corporation

With budgets decreasing, storage requirements increasing, and a continuing shortage of skilled individuals to manage storage infrastructures, the need for better storage management is upon us. The decision to implement a storage management solution, however, isn't one that should be taken lightly. While the rewards can be significant, so too is the up-front effort required to achieve the vision. Storage management is more than technology; it's also dependent upon how the organization drives the business, manages the information, and uses that information to make better business decisions.

Before embarking on this journey, the organization needs to identify the expected objectives and the level of commitment to achieving the goal. If the organization is only interested in achieving tactical management, perhaps the tools supplied by the hardware vendor are adequate. If, however, the desired result is to enable IT to deliver storage services to the business that are measurable, accountable, and tightly integrated with business objectives, the organization requires a strategically focused solution and a willingness to adopt process change.

What is SRM?
Storage resource management (SRM) is the process of monitoring and managing the capacity and performance of storage resources across multiple storage and server platforms. While traditional SRM solutions collect data from the array, file, or file system, more comprehensive solutions provide a complete view of the supply chain to manage physical and logical storage capacity. These tools are also able to automatically discover critical applications and databases and offer high-level monitoring of backup processes to ensure recovery. Performance management is also critical, and integration with policy management and storage provisioning further ease the burden of managing complex storage environments.