Veritas Software will announce the latest version of one of its key
networked storage-management products today, adding a new layer of
support for business software as well as improved reporting and
automation tools.
The company claimed that with version 3.5 of its SANPoint Control
product, it has improved its ability to manage complex networks of
storage servers and other hardware.
Veritas has built in ways for an administrator to see what hardware
resources are available to run Oracle's databases and Microsoft's
Exchange software. It has also automated many of the management
tasks in SANPoint Control to make life easier for administrators,
and has provided more detailed views of how data is being used
within a company.
The new version of the Veritas software presents a picture to the
administrator of the underlying hardware infrastructure that is
running an Oracle database, for example. Users can find out, in
virtually real time, what systems the database is pulling
information from and how the hardware is linked together, which can
help a company adjust its infrastructure for better
performance.
Administrators can set policies for the ways their SAN should
respond if the database, for example, runs out of storage
resources. The user could tell SANPoint Control to make sure it
adds room to a file system that is near its full capacity.
Jonathan Martin, director of product management for Veritas' high
availability line, said: "We are now expanding our product up into
the application layer. It allows you to view and manage storage
resources for an Oracle table space or Microsoft Exchange
mailbox."
Veritas competes with EMC and IBM to offer software that can look
across hardware from different vendors and provide an easy way to
manage disparate systems. In addition, vendors are looking to
automate complex management processes such as managing storage
capacity for key business applications to ensure high levels of
performance.
Managing storage area networks (SANs) has been challenging for
users because it requires them to control vast amounts of hardware,
including servers, storage systems, switches and host bus adapters
(HBAs). In addition, competing hardware vendors are only in the
early stages of swapping APIs (application programming interface)
with each other to make management of multivendor gear
possible.
Veritas, as a software-only player, has been somewhat neutral in
this market and prides itself on being able to tap into a larger
list of hardware than other vendors of SAN management products.
With the latest version of its SANPoint Control product, Veritas
can manage hardware from EMC, Hitachi and Hewlett-Packard, Martin
claimed.
The SANPoint Control product starts at $20,000 (£13,030), with
additional costs for port licences and software agents.