The SRM Conundrum

Martin (Storagebod) has an interesting post today. Rather than post a long reply, I've chosen to steal his thunder and post specifically on the subject - of SRM tools.

Apart from when I worked in the mainframe storage arena, I've always struggled with SRM tools. Just for reference, the mainframe was great - SMS did the job, although there were a few shortcomings like the lack of quota tools. In the open world, things are so, so different. I think the reason open systems is a problem relates to the fact that although standards exist, technology is all different.

Look back at my recent post; there are two fundamental issues happening here. First of all, each vendor has a different implementation of technology - EMC/HDS/IBM/3Par/Pillar/Equallogic, the list goes on. Why are they different? Because there has to be something to create a USP, a differentiator. Sure, front-end technology might be consistent; each vendor will implement LUNs and the fibre channel standards, but in reality the back-end deployment will be different as each manufacturer competes on features and functionality. The same applies for the switch vendors, NAS vendors, and so on.

SMI-S was meant to address these problems but never would as it basically dumbs down each vendor to a single set of features and doesn't address the platform specific functionality. Try using IBM and HDS arrays from ECC (in fact, try managing EMC arrays like Clariion from ECC) and you'll fall at the first post. I won't even suggest trying to use any other product like HiCommand...

Some software vendors have tried to do cross-platform SRM. Think of Creekpath. It failed miserably to offer cross platform support because (as Martin rightly states) they never understood how Storage Admins did their work.

The answer to the lack of an SRM tool would be for an independent to develop one. However there's one major barrier to entry and that's the vendors themselves. All the major vendors make a tidy profit (Martin's cash cow) from their SRM tools - software without which you could do *nothing* but for which you are obliged to pay. Why would those vendors give up that monopoly position?

I've been working on a tool for some months (see here) which will provide cross-platform reporting, but full SRM is another step again. Without full vendor support, and by that I mean full knowledge of the APIs and interfaces to their products, not just the standard SMI-S providers - and advance notice and access to new features -then developing an SRM tool will be impossible.

However if anyone is prepared to pony up the cash, I'm still up for it!!

Software Shortcomings

I was invited last week to speak at the first (of hopefully) many HDS User Forums in the UK. The subject was Storage Resource Management and I talked on the subject and my thoughts for about 30 minutes. One slide generated the most interest and I've included it here. It shows some of the issues current SRM products have and which are not really being addressed by software vendors.

A case in point is the installation of Device Manager I performed this week on a virtual domain. HiCommand Device Manager 5.1 is supported on VMware (2.5) however I couldn't get the software to install at all. I tried the previous version which worked fine, so I was confident the Windows 2003 build was OK. HDS pointed me at a new feature I'd not seen before, Data Execution Prevention which is intended to prevent certain types of virus attacks based on buffer overflows. Whilst this solved the problem, it didn't fill me with a great deal of confidence to think Windows judged HDS's software as a virus. With DEP enabled, the installation got further but still eventually failed. On HDS' advice, re-running the installation again worked.

At the forum, HDS presented their SRM roadmap. If it all comes to fruition then I'll be able to do my provisioning, monitoring and other storage management tasks using my Blackberry whilst sipping Pina Colada's on a Carribbean beach. Back in the real world, my concern is that if the existing tools don't even install cleanly, how am I expected to trust a tool which is moving my disks around dynamically in the background?

It's easy for me to target HDS in this instance but all vendors are equally culpable. I think there's a need for vendors to "walk before they can run". Personally, I'd have more trust in a software tool that was 100% reliable than one which offered me lots of new whizzy features. Vendors, get the basics sorted. Get confidence in your tools and build on that. That way I might get to do provisioning from the beach before I'm too old and grey to enjoy it.