WINNER
AppIQ Inc.s StorageAuthority Suite 3.0
AppIQs commitment to storage management standards pushed its updated StorageAuthority Suite to the top in the Enterprise Storage category, narrowly defeating archrival CreekPath Systems Inc.s CreekPath Suite 3.0.
StorageAuthority Suite 3.0 allows IT managers to centralize storage resource management. Through its heterogeneous support of storage hardware, which includes support for equipment from major vendors including EMC Corp., Hitachi Data Systems Inc., Brocade Communications Systems Inc. and McData Corp., AppIQ has the potential to simplify management of complex storage networks significantly.
Though full of praise for the product, the judges felt StorageAuthority Suite 3.0 still had a ways to go to deliver on its promise. “Heterogeneous is a word that gets used too much in this industry,” one judge said. “There should be a limit where if you dont support a certain percentage of equipment out there, you cant say you are heterogeneous.”
The fact that StorageAuthority Suite 3.0 is built on standards such as Common Information Model and the Storage Networking Industry Associations Storage Management Initiative Specification should ensure the future will be bright for StorageAuthority.
FINALISTS
CreekPath Systems Inc.s CreekPath Suite 3.0
CreekPath Suite 3.0 is a solid storage management system that should continue to improve as it gains support for more platforms in its interoperability matrix.
As one Excellence Awards judge put it: “CreekPath Suite 3.0 addresses a majority of issues facing enterprise storage management, but going into the future, they need to further emphasize standards and expand supported hardware, especially for HP/Compaq SANs.”
CreekPath is running neck and neck with AppIQ in the race to support heterogeneous storage management standards and devices. This support should be a major differentiating factor among all enterprise storage products going into the future.
IBMs TotalStorage San File System 1.1
TotalStorage SAN File System 1.1 is a new product that could have a major impact on SANs in the future.
According to one judge, “IBM TotalStorage SAN File System is a technically attractive solution that enables a single file system across multiple systems.”
By moving intelligence away from the local file system and onto the SAN itself, TotalStorage SAN File System 1.1 provides policy-based storage management at the file level, while creating a single global namespace.
Unfortunately, in its current state, TotalStorage SAN File System 1.1 supports only IBM-based storage, although this will likely change in the near future.
Excellence Awards Winners and Finalists:
- Analytics & Reporting
- Application & Web Services Development
- Customer Relationship Management
- Portals & Knowledge Management
- Desktop & Handheld Hardware
- e-Business Foundations
- Enterprise Collaboration & Messaging
- Enterprise Storage
- IT Quality Assurance Tools
- Personal Productivity
- Server Hardware
- Networking & Management Tools
- Networking Infrastructure
- Authentication & User Management
- Enterprise Resource Protection