IT Automation Bypasses Storage

Data center automation products have a blind spot when it comes to storage, and it may take a long time to remedy the situation.

Software that automates various management functions of IT is growing in popularity, as demonstrated by BladeLogic's IPO and the proposed sale of Opsware to HP for $1.6 billion. But storage networks have been largely left out of the loop.

"Major automation suppliers seem to be sticking to systems and servers, not the network or storage," says analyst Andi Mann of Enterprise Management Associates. "They're leaving storage to specialists."

There's no surprise in this state of affairs. Data center automation is expensive, usually affordable by only the biggest enterprises. In these shops, IT tends to be divided into fiefdoms. Often, operations folk are concerned with the configuration of application servers, and they are only too happy to leave storage off their list of problems to solve.

"About the only time a customer wants to talk about storage is relative to servers and applications," says Vick Vaishnavi, director of product marketing at BladeLogic. The kind of IT pro who's investing top dollar in IT automation frequently does so to ensure server farms are configured correctly and consistently; he or she can't be bothered with fiddling with LUNs, RAID sets, and other underlying vagaries of the storage infrastructure.Still, BladeLogic has partnered with EMC and Onaro to orchestrate those vendors' storage management wares into automation workflows. If a customer wants to activate an SRM tool as part of a disaster recovery or provisioning routine, BladeLogic can make that happen. "We can invoke tools from the process perspective today," Vaishnavi asserts.

BladeLogic plans a tighter integration of storage into its wares, so that storage would be included in the broader range of automated management tools, but there's no rush to do so, and no plan to ever replace SRM. "We are moving toward greater visibility and orchestration, but this would be a value-add to what our partners [like EMC and Onaro] do," Vaishnavi says. As to timeframe, he'll say only that it's not imminent.

At least one storage manager thinks there's value in at least drawing storage into the automation loop at the workflow level. "Many DBAs and system admins dont know what goes into storage provisioning, and I think there is a breakdown in telling them where the provision request is and who is handling it," says Michael R. Passe, storage architect with CareGroup Healthcare System in Boston. "Essentially, providing some work flow for both [DBAs and sys admins] and the storage team is something that is long overdue. It will ease relations on both sides."

Passe's organization, which has an ILM system of several tiers across EMC Symmetrix and Clariion systems at two large sites, is currently evaluating an automation solution from BladeLogic. But Passe says the IT group is mainly intent on better server management. Eventually, he concedes, some aspects of storage management, such as disaster recovery, might benefit from automation. "We try to do it wherever it makes sense, here and there."

Shops like Passe's may not be pushing hard enough for big vendors to close IT automation/storage gap. And, indeed, some of the large suppliers are focused on adding automation to storage in organizations where the storage functions are pigeonholed.Symantec, for example, isn't too concerned about wedding storage and IT automation. "If you look at a typical operational team, they are in silos," says Yogesh Agrawal, Symantec's senior director for storage management. He adds that many storage administrators are suspicious of automation and fear a loss of control over key processes.

Symantec's storage automation story is tied to the latest version of the CommandCentral SRM software it launched earlier this month. (See Symantec Scales Up SRM and Symantec Intros CommandCentral 5.0.) Specifically, the vendor added the ability to automatically create, mask, and reassign LUNs. And it added a feature called Process Automation Manager that lets users view the workflows associated with their storage and ensure that SLAs are being met.

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EMC, another vendor intent on storage automation, says it's already got all the information required for comprehensive data center monitoring via its Smarts series. Other EMC management tools, like ControlCenter, SANadvisor, and IT Process Centre, can be used to automate various storage processes as well. What remains is to forge better links to products like BladeLogic's.

"Do we have to work together? Absolutely," says Glenn O'Donnell, principal product marketing manager for EMC's resource management products, including Smarts. "It's not as seamless as everyone would like it to be yet." While EMC is linking SRM and IT automation from BladeLogic in custom projects today, he acknowledges a need for better out-of-the-box integration. Still, there is no timeframe for delivery.In O'Donnell's view, standards may help, particularly ones based on techniques like configuration management databases (CMDB), which have up to now left out storage gear. (See Storage Left Out of CMDB Loop.) Projects like the CMDB Federation, founded in 2006 by BMC, CA, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, and Microsoft, might contribute. But work appears to be slow and indecisive.

What's more, multiple attempts to standardize a universally acceptable management protocol for intersystem communication in any IT area have largely failed. While it would be great to have standards, it's not likely they'll happen anytime soon.

"It's almost like there is a conflict of interest for a supplier of data when it comes to providing a way to manage that data," says BladeLogic's Vaishnavi. When a vendor is trying to push its own data-handling equipment and software over others', he says, it's not likely to be ready to manage its competitors' offerings with the same level of efficiency.

It's also tough to get the kind of storage management functions required for automation into a general-purpose database. "Storage provides some unique challenges to automation of provisioning," says Michael Passe. "The fact is that there are different array vendors, and some arrays and their element managers lend themselves better to automation than others. [Then there is] the SAN switch side, which is often another element manager from the array. [It all adds] up to more complexity than is present in the server and network switch space, which makes automation harder."

For now, customers intent on having a tighter link between storage and IT automation may have to look to smaller players. Onaro, for instance, is committed to increasing storage visibility through its BladeLogic partnership. Opsware is also aiming to incorporate storage more closely in its solutions."Most of our customers started by automating the tasks for server provisioning [but] they are increasingly buying into the bigger story," says Helen Tang, Opsware's director of product marketing.

The vendor's storage plans appear to be tied up in a product called Application Storage Automation System (ASAS), which will be launched in mid-September. (See HP to Buy Opsware for $1.6B and HP to Acquire Opsware.) The vendor got its hands on the core technology behind ASAS when it acquired Creekpath for $10 million in July 2006 and has been running beta tests on the product for the last few months, according to Tang. (See Opsware Gains CreekPath, Opsware Outlines Storage Plan, and Opsware Opens Up on Storage.)

At this stage, specific details of the ASAS software remain somewhat blurry, particularly how it will automate storage. "It's a single pane of glass view of servers and storage," says Tang, vaguely. "You can change server and storage configurations and run a single compliance report."

The exec adds that ASAS will offer an "application-centric" perspective on managing storage, which suggests that the software could be tied to products, such as Oracle's 10g database. (See Oracle Extends 10g, Onaro, Oracle Team Up, and IBM, Oracle Join Forces.) Tang nonetheless admits that the product is targeted more at server admins than their storage counterparts.

Despite the progress, bringing storage into the automation loop will be a slow and steady process, fueled only by demand that suppliers can actually quantify. The coming months should reveal more about how committed end users are to be adding storage to IT automation, and how responsive their suppliers will be.