CA Spans Into SANs

Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) (NYSE: CA) today released its first SAN management tool, intended to simplify the care and feeding of Fibre Channel networks (see CA Launches SAN Manager).

It remains to be seen how well this product will fare, but CA's BrightStor SAN Manager could cause some heartburn for competitors, especially for some smaller players. While the software is explicitly designed to integrate tightly with CA's Unicenter enterprise management framework, CA is also selling it as an affordable standalone product -- starting at around $1,000 per server.

David Hill, an analyst at Aberdeen Group Inc., says CA's SAN Manager is very good at discovering and mapping devices in a multivendor SAN. "It's important that they're not just a monitoring tool, they're a doing tool," he says. "Everybody is talking about various things for the future -- self-healing systems, policy-based management -- and CA is clearly going in the same direction."

CA says its target market for SAN Manager is the enterprise operations center. The tool is supposed to allow the IT staffers who are already doing the day-to-day management of the rest of the enterprise's systems to also handle the storage area network.

"We've simplified SAN management so that your senior-level experts don't have to be the people who troubleshoot and manage it," says Eric Pitcher, brand manager for BrightStor SAN management products. "The SAN is no longer the red-headed stepchild sitting in the corner." [Ed. note: Just as long as the SAN doesn't turn into a cloned Raelian baby, I think we're all OK.]SAN Manager supports devices from vendors including Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD), EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), Emulex Corp. (Nasdaq: ELX), Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), and XIOtech Corp.

CA executives were unable to provide a full list of currently supported devices, but Pitcher assures us, "You name it, we basically support it." OK. How about Cisco Systems Inc.'s (Nasdaq: CSCO) Andiamo switches? No, not yet: SAN Manager will support Cisco's Fibre Channel switches in the second major release, due out by the end of 2003, he says.

The company first announced its plans for the SAN Manager in April 2002, when it outlined an overall roadmap for its storage management product lines (see CA Unveils Management Vision).

Developed by CA in-house, SAN Manager will compete with BMC Software Inc.'s (NYSE: BMC) Patrol Storage Network Manager, EMC ControlCenter, Fujitsu Software Technology Corp. (Softek) Storage Manager, IBM Tivoli's Storage Area Network Manager, McData Corp.'s (Nasdaq: MCDTA) SANavigator, and Veritas Software Corp.'s (Nasdaq: VRTS) SANPoint Control. Startups vying for customers in this space include AppIQ Corp., CreekPath Systems Inc., InterSAN Inc., Invio Software Inc. -- which last fall licensed its software to BMC -- and Netreon Inc. (see BMC OEMs From Invio, AppIQ Has a Clue, Services Firms Check Out InterSAN, CreekPath Inches Along, and Netreon Set Free).

Pitcher says that, while SAN Manager is a new product, it's based on common components from CA's other software families. "We think we can do very, very well in this environment since we're already managing enterprise environments. SANs are just another environment."CA had previously offered some basic SAN management features in other products, but BrightStor SAN Manager now provides a more complete set, including zone management, logical unit number (LUN) mapping and discovery, device discovery, and support for Worldwide Names.

Clearly, CA is hoping to sell a healthy number of licenses into its installed base. One of its first customers for the product is Electronic Theatre Controls Inc. (ETC), a manufacturer of entertainment and architectural lighting equipment based in Middleton, Wisc.

"We've been a partner with CA for a while," says Mike Eckert, ETC's enterprise automation administrator. "The main reason I like SAN Manager is because it ties things like event management in directly with the other CA products we're using," which include Unicenter and BrightStor Enterprise Backup.

ETC, which just installed its SAN in December and was a SAN Manager beta-test site, has a 1.8-Tbye EMC Clariion FC47000 array connected via two 16-port Brocade switches to eight dual-connected servers, running Microsoft Corp.