Monday, February 20, 2012

Process Automation @ FIX University

More FIX on the NET @ FIX University Cultural Campus

Automation for Storage
Clouds

iWave Software enables Enterprise IT organizations and Service Providers to
build Storage Clouds using their existing storage infrastructure.

Storage Administrators face a daunting challenge. According to industry
analysts like the Gartner Group, storage under corporate IT management will grow
between 60 and 70 percent in 2011. IDC estimates that by 2020, the storage that
IT organizations manage will grow by 20 times, but the staff tasked with
supporting that storage will grow by just 1.5 times.

iWave Storage Automator enables Enterprise IT and Service
Providers to deliver enterprise storage as a a policy-driven, fully-automated
cloud service, by providing:

  • Self Service Storage Portal: provides storage
    consumers such as DBAs, application developers, and server support staff with
    the ability to submit and track requests for storage as well as advanced storage
    services such as replication, migrations, etc.
  • Storage Services Catalog: provides storage
    consumers with a catalog of fully-automated storage services. Storage consumers
    are restricted to accessing the Storage Services that are defined for their
    particular role(s).
  • Fully Automated Storage Services: all storage
    services defined in the Storage Services Catalog are fully automated and do not
    require manual effort by a Storage Administrator. Fully automated services can
    include storage provisioning, reclamation and remediation.
  • Enforcement of Best Practices: all storage
    services are defined using an organization’s best practices for storage
    administration. Enforcing best practices through automated services enables
    Enterprise IT Storage organizations to avoid outages caused by configuration
    errors or failure to follow the proper storage run book procedures.
  • Storage Classification: storage administrators
    can offer services by storage classification. For example, they may offer a
    fully automated service to provision “gold” or “tier-1” storage for an Oracle
    CMDB.
  • Policy Driven: all services are driven by
    policies defined by the storage administrator. For example, storage
    administrators can specify that certain services require approval before they
    are delivered.
  • Fully Audited: each action performed by a
    fully-automated storage service is recorded in a secure audit log.
Automation for Storage Clouds

Storage Clouds offer a seismic shift for the way enterprises manage IT
storage, replacing the old manual, device-centric administration paradigm with
an automated, services-centric paradigm, where administrators create fully
automated, storage services, set the policy for those services, then monitor the
quality of services delivery. Instead of constantly focusing on the minutia of
storage operations, IT Storage Support can work closer with their business to
identify new opportunities to define automated storage services that provide
real solutions to the business’ challenges.

Continuous Automation Process for Storage Administrators

For IT Organizations that make the shift to Storage Clouds, the
benefits are compelling:

  • Scalable Storage Administration: By automating
    common storage administration tasks, Storage Clouds can enable enterprise IT
    organizations to scale their existing storage admin resources to manage the
    predicted 60+ percent growth in enterprise storage.
  • Fewer Storage Outages: the majority of server
    outages are caused by configuration errors introduced by storage admins or
    consumers do not follow approved, best practices. Storage Cloud policies can
    ensure that automated storage services always follow best practices.
  • Reduction in Storage Provisioning Times: Storage
    Clouds can take the time required to provision new storage from days and weeks
    to minutes, improving the productivity of both storage admins and consumers.
  • Improved Customer Satisfaction: faster storage
    provisioning times and fewer outages equates to happier storage consumers.
  • Reduction in Storage Operating Costs: most
    Storage Clouds pay for themselves in the first 18 months through reduced storage
    admin labor cost (future hires avoided), productivity gains by storage admins
    & consumers and in fewer storage outages.

iWave Storage Automator provides IT organizations with a scalable,
enterprise-class storage automation platform to build Storage Clouds. For more
information, visit the iWave
Storage Automator
product page.

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