10.6 Chapter Summary

Storage Network Management

• Management of SANs falls within a hierarchy of management applications, extending from hardware device managers through enterprise-wide management applications.

• Device managers convey commands and status from hardware to an external management application, typically via SNMP, HTTP, or proprietary APIs.

• Storage network management relies on information from device managers and consolidates management data into a single view of the SAN interconnection.

• In-band management moves management data across the SAN transport. Out-of-band management relies on SNMP, HTTP, or other protocols to move SAN management data via a separate Ethernet LAN segment.

Storage Resource Management

• Storage resource management provides a consolidated view of distributed disk resources, available space, file locations, user storage budgets, and so on, and it facilitates capacity planning.

• SRM applications can monitor both direct-attached and SAN-attached storage resources.

Storage Management

• Storage management may include resource functions as well as tape backup management, data archiving, data placement, and file policy administration.

• Storage management applications are facilitated by the SAN's ability to share tape and storage resources.

Integration of Storage, Systems, and Enterprise Management

• Management of storage and storage networking can be integrated into higher-level systems and enterprise management applications.

• Integration is facilitated by common programming interfaces.

The Common Information Model (CIM)

• Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) leverages Internet protocols and browser interfaces to provide management of a diversity of network products and applications.

• The Common Information Model (CIM) provides an object-based structure for defining categories of managed devices and their attributes.

• CIM information is formatted using Extensible Markup Language (XML) and is transported via HTTP and TCP/IP.

• CIM implementations for storage networking are based on CIM agents in devices and applications, and CIM clients in management frameworks.

• A CIM client may provide a CIM object manager (CIMOM) to manage a diversity of storage resources from a single platform.

• WBEM/CIM management for storage is being led by the Storage Networking Industry Association and will simplify management of complex multivendor SANs.