Capacity Management for SAN Attached 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 SAN attached storage is a complex task that typically overlaps several areas of responsibility. SAN administrators are often tasked with allocating SAN 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.

i’ll be discussing ways to assist the storage administrator in the complex task of managing SAN attached storage in our April 5th webinar.

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

Dale Feiste

Principal Consultant