Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

AppIQ IMPLEMENTS SNIA SMI-S

AppIQ, leading the open management revolution, has collaborated with HP to validate the interoperability of AppIQ Solution Suite with HP StorageWorks enterprise arrays via the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA) Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S). AppIQ and HP are two of nineteen companies participating in the CIM-SAN-2 Developers Demonstration Program at Storage Networking World (SNW) this week, providing an extensive management interoperability exhibit.

As active members of the SNIA Storage Management Forum (SMF), both companies are committed to delivering the management functionality the SMI-S offers to end-users in products that will ship this year.

"Customers are looking for answers to the management interoperability and integration issues they face every day in their data centers," said Gartner Chief Storage Analyst Carolyn DiCenzo. "Whether it's through open APIs or industry standards, they want assurance from the vendors that they're working the best solution. The SNIA has made rapid progress in completing the SMI-S specification, and vendors are now doing the real-world work that needs to be done to make SMI-S a viable industry standard for SAN management."

The goal of the CIM-SAN-2 demonstration at SNW is to give customers a firsthand view of the benefits the SMI-S delivers for managing heterogeneous SAN environments. As part of the demonstration, AppIQ and HP will demonstrate a robust implementation of SMI-S that enables active management capabilities such as provisioning as well as monitoring, event management and reporting.

"AppIQ and HP are validating how adoption of the SMI-S leads to true interoperability customers can rely upon and utilize in their systems today, further proof that a standard for storage management interoperability has arrived." said Doug Cahill, vice president of business development and strategy for AppIQ. "Integrated, holistic storage management systems that are completely SMI-S-built offer the best alternative to the losing battle end users face when they attempt to manage complexity with point solutions. The companies signed on with the SMF aren't giving lip service to interoperability -- they're working overtime to deliver it."

AppIQ is working with HP to test SMI-S against their respective management products, AppIQ Solution Suite and HP OpenView Storage Area Manager (SAM), and the HP StorageWorks enterprise array family. Both companies intend to make the functionality available to customers later in 2003.

"Today's customer priorities are centered on optimizing and managing heterogeneous storage networks with intelligent standards-based software management tools," said Mark Sorenson, vice president of software, HP Network Storage Solutions. "The work that AppIQ and HP are doing is about ensuring the adoption of SMI-S and advancing the capabilities our management software is delivering to our customers."