Key Performance and Capacity Concerns for Data Storage

Storage Area Networks (SAN) have become ubiquitous in the modern datacenter.

Today’s modern storage environment consists of a complex mix of equipment that interconnects systems to centralized storage. A direct access storage device (DASD) I/O request starts at the host bus adapter (HBA) and extends through a network, and possibly other devices, before finally getting completed at a storage array or intervening cache.

Managing capacity for  storage is a complex task that typically overlaps several areas of responsibility. Storage administrators are often tasked with allocating storage and maintaining hardware, along with managing capacity and performance.

This approach is good in that storage administrators have intimate knowledge of their storage environments. However, storage administrators typically don’t have time to look at all aspects of capacity management in a proactive fashion, and this creates a reactive mode of operation.

Operating reactively means troubleshooting performance impacts after they happen, allocating storage on short notice, and having their allocated storage be severely under-utilized.

Proactively getting in front of incidents before they happen is what capacity management is all about.

I’ll be discussing ways to assist the storage administrator in the complex task of managing  storage in my April 11 webinar.

So why not register for your free place and come along http://www.metron-athene.com/services/training/webinars/index.html

Dale Feiste
Consultant