Storage Manager More Than a Sidekick

Softek Storage Manager 2.1, the latest release of Fujitsu Software Technology Corp.s SRM suite, boasts improved integration with Softek Storage Provisioner 2.1 and enhanced application support.

Softek Storage Manager 2.1, released this month, is priced at $39,000. Although it is not a requirement to buy both Softek Storage Manager 2.1 and Softek Storage Provisioner 2.1, our tests showed they work extremely well as a pair. (Both products can be deployed separately.)

Companies that want just reporting and analysis tools should use Softek Storage Manager 2.1, whereas companies that want more active control of their storage resources should use Softek Storage Provisioner 2.1 (see review, left). We believe sites will likely buy a storage resource management package first to do trend analysis and then buy Provisioner to carve out resources.

Softek Storage Manager 2.1 provides an effective single point of management. It enabled us to remotely manage our Softek Storage Provisioner 2.1 servers from within the management console, eliminating any need to go to the Provisioner management console (see screen).

The management utilities in Softek Storage Manager 2.1 enabled us to set thresholds to determine how much storage to automatically allocate and where to send it. For example, we configured Softek Storage Provisioner 2.1 to add 300GB of storage to one of our test servers when utilization bumped up to 30 percent of its capacity and to add even more storage when utilization reached 80 percent of capacity.

Since we last looked at Softek Storage Manager last year, Fujitsu Softek has added support for Linux to its previous support for Windows and a variety of Unixes. Version 2.1s support for Oracle Corp. and SQL databases makes its SRM capabilities even more valuable and brings the product up to par with other enterprise-class solutions, such as IBMs Tivoli SRM.

The new policy-based script execution tool is another remarkable addition and allowed us to launch applications based on events. For example, we could use the policy-based script execution tool to launch a Legato Systems Inc. backup session after adding storage to a test server.

Softek Storage Managers Action Set functionality allowed us to automate such space management tasks as archiving or deleting old files. Using Softek Storage Managers management tools, we could also set these processes to occur when specific thresholds are met (for example, when files get too old).