Features - Storage Innovations:

ESG RELEASES PROFILE OF AppIQ StorageAuthority SUITE

AppIQ, a leading provider of enterprise software that enables data storage to be managed as an IT utility, announced the availability of a new product report by leading independent storage analyst firm Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) profiling AppIQ StorageAuthority Suite. The report examines StorageAuthority Suite's ability to streamline storage area management operations and comply with the storage industry's Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) standard to more effectively utilize storage resources, reduce overall costs, and ensure business-critical application performance and availability.

"Although a number of other vendors used terms like 'application centric' or 'application aware,' the truth of the matter is that AppIQ has the most extensive, end-to-end application focused storage management solution (that we have seen) on the market," wrote Nancy Marrone-Hurley of ESG. "In ESG terms, AppIQ StorageAuthority is considered an Automated Resource Management (ARM) solution. ARM solutions combine the capabilities of storage management, SRM, and provisioning products. There are a number of ARM solutions available today (some fully automated, some not), but none can address application specific storage management as completely as StorageAuthority."

The integrated storage network auto-discovery, monitoring, reporting, provisioning, and policy-based automation capabilities of AppIQ StorageAuthority Suite enable IT organizations to build a real-time IT infrastructure in support of business-critical messaging, database, ERP, CRM, and file serving applications. By highlighting the dependencies of these applications on SAN components such as HBAs, switches, and disk subsystems, and by proactively managing configuration, capacity, and performance at every level of the application-storage hierarchy, AppIQ StorageAuthority Suite reduces the costs of operating large-scale, heterogeneous storage networks, maximizes the availability and performance of SAN-hosted applications, and improves IT productivity and efficiency.

"Since day one, AppIQ has been focused on delivering standards-based, application-centric storage area management solutions," said Dave Lemont, CEO of AppIQ. "We're proud that a renowned analyst firm such as ESG recognizes and acknowledges AppIQ for delivering on our vision. This evaluation of StorageAuthority Suite is further evidence that we are transforming enterprise storage into an on-demand, application-focused IT utility."

The report is available on the AppIQ Web site at www.appiq.com and on the Enterprise Storage Group Web site at www.enterprisestoragegroup .com.