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NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: ANNE SKAMAROCK on
STORAGE 01/29/02 Today's focus: Policy-based automatic provisioning Dear Wincenty Kaminski, In this issue: * Introducing InterSAN's Pathline * Featured reader resource _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter sponsored by Computer Associates International Inc. When disaster strikes, how quickly can you get your data back? Each minute of downtime is lost revenue. BrightStor(tm) ARCserve Storage Essentials Suites & Protection Solutions keep you in business. With FREE disaster recovery ($695 msrp value), Storage Essential Suites get you back up fast! Not enough? You can also get Upgrade Protection at HALF PRICE when you purchase ARCserve Protection Solutions! Call CA at 800-225-5224 (Promo code 1007) or visit http://nww1.com/go/3849480a.html _______________________________________________________________ TECHNOLOGY INSIDER: STREAMING MEDIA Streaming media is taking off as a corporate communications and training tool. We take you behind the scenes of the technology, showing you best practices, case studies and a feature on the individual streaming media champions leading the charge. Check it out at http://nww1.com/go/ad237.html _______________________________________________________________ Today's focus: Policy-based automatic provisioning By Anne Skamarock Those who read my articles regularly, know how I feel about the lack of interaction between storage infrastructure management point products and the applications that use the storage in a heterogeneous environment. InterSAN is addressing this issue with its recently announced Pathline product. Today, there are products available that can easily discover all the components on a storage-area network (SAN) and create a map of the components for administrators to visualize. Many of these products provide environment-monitoring capabilities much like the popular network frameworks. However, given a problem these products cannot take anything but the simplest course of action because they have no interaction or knowledge of the applications using the infrastructure. This requires an expert administrator or two or three... InterSAN's Pathline product solves this problem. Released for general availability last month, Pathline provides the automated discovery, topology rendering, and event management described above and goes beyond that. The product ties in the application to manage the relationship between the application and the data path through policy-based automatic provisioning. Well, what does policy-based automatic provisioning mean? When storage is being allocated for an application, the administrator will either select an existing policy or create one specifically for that application. That policy defines the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of the application. Once the policy has been chosen, Pathline creates the optimal data path, which InterSAN calls a Virtual Private Data Path (VPD), from the application to the storage where the application data resides. The SAN infrastructure components are configured automatically, without requiring administrator interaction at the component level. So, what is meant by policy that defines QoS? The policies describe the type of storage, the connectivity and the amount of redundancy required by the application. Given the policy description the VPD is created or provisioned for that QoS. In conjunction with the data path description, a service level requirement can be set within the policy that defines the availability objectives (99.9%, 99.99%, etc.). Once a service level has been added to the policy, Pathline monitors and reports application-data-path uptime and alerts on exceptions. Finally, though certainly not of least importance, Pathline policies allow security requirements to be described. The ability to define what actions to take upon an application data path security breach, provides a level of security management and enforcement currently unavailable from other software products. At last, the storage management market, with the Pathline product, is starting to integrate capabilities to provide business-relevant management of storage and storage area networks. _______________________________________________________________ To contact Anne Skamarock: Anne Skamarock is an analyst with Enterprise Management Associates (http://www.enterprisemanagement.com). She has worked with networked storage for the last 15 years and is currently focused on the storage practice within EMA. She can be reached at mailto:askamarock@enterprisemanagement.com _______________________________________________________________ PRODUCT INFO IN ONE CONVENIENT LOCATION! Heard about a new product launch? Curious to find out if the features and benefits of this new product will meet your critical business needs? Network World Fusion's Product Central section includes all the info you need to make informed decision about new products and also includes a product finder function. Check it out at http://nww1.com/go/ad216.html _______________________________________________________________ RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS InterSAN http://www.intersan.net/ _______________________________________________________________ FEATURED READER RESOURCE Network World Fusion's Net.Worker site Whether your company is growing larger or scaling back, corporate managers are looking for ways to cut costs while retaining and recruiting star employees. One smart solution - at least on paper - is to let some employees work from home. Network World's Net.Worker Web site bridges the gap between the telework concept and the hardware, software and services needed to make it happen. We bring you news and reviews, sound advice and keen insight into the technologies and solutions you need to manage a remote and mobile workforce. Visit http://www.nwfusion.com/net.worker/index.html _______________________________________________________________ May We Send You a Free Print Subscription? You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered at your fingertips each day. Now, extend your knowledge by receiving 51 FREE issues to our print publication. Apply today at http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/nl _______________________________________________________________ SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World e-mail newsletters, go to: http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/news/scripts/notprinteditnews.asp To unsubscribe from promotional e-mail go to: http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/ep To change your e-mail address, go to: http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/news/scripts/changeemail.asp Subscription questions? Contact Customer Service by replying to this message. Have editorial comments? Write Jeff Caruso, Newsletter Editor, at: mailto:jcaruso@nww.com For advertising information, write Jamie Kalbach, Director of Online Sales, at: mailto:jkalbach@nww.com Copyright Network World, Inc., 2002 ------------------------ This message was sent to: vkamins@enron.com
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