Features - Storage Innovations:

SOFTEK INTROS PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS PRODUCT WITH ESRM SUITE

Softek, a provider of storage management software, announced it has expanded the Softek Storage Manager suite of enterprise storage resource management (ESRM) products with the addition of Softek Performance Tuner, the industry's first storage performance management product integrated with an ESRM solution. The company has also added new features and enhanced overall scalability and performance of its Softek Storage Manager ESRM and Softek SANView storage area network (SAN) management software products.

Softek Performance Tuner enables IT managers to better understand and diagnose the performance of their storage environments and more quickly return to normal operation when problems occur. It introduces sophisticated storage performance management capabilities to the new release of Softek's enterprise storage resource management (ESRM) software suite, which also includes Softek Storage Manager 2.5, Softek Space Optimizer 2.5 and Softek SANView 5.5. With Softek Performance Tuner, IT administrators can now benchmark and optimize the performance of their storage environments and ensure that their applications perform smoothly to meet and exceed business requirements.

Softek Performance Tuner enables IT administrators to profile the performance of their storage environment throughout the business day and business week to understand the normal performance of the storage environment. Server and storage network performance statistics are first collected to establish a baseline of normal operation. Then, when performance levels fall outside the normal range, Softek Performance Tuner proactively alerts IT administrators to the problem and also delivers a variety of actionable reports on performance within the storage environment. Softek Performance Tuner includes powerful performance profiling capabilities to help users identify and then resolve specific problems and return the storage environment to its normal performance range.

"These new products demonstrate our continuing commitment to providing powerful storage management solutions that enable IT administrators to see, manage and protect information in multi-vendor environments," said Karen Dutch, vice president and general manager for the company's Open Systems group. "Today, performance management is more of an art than a science. With the addition of Softek Performance Tuner, we have expanded the management capabilities of our ESRM suite to provide powerful performance benchmarking and analysis capabilities to make performance management more of a science."

New features for Softek Storage Manager 2.5 include:

• Scalability enhancements: Softek Storage Manager 2.5 introduces scalability enhancements that allow management of environments with several hundred million files from a single Softek Storage Manager instance.
• Secure and enhanced reporting: Allows execution of pre-defined reports without enabling IIS, for operation in highly secure environments. Reports support a broader range of visualization options, including pie charts, which complement existing bar and line-graph displays.
• Support for Linux on mainframe: Provides space optimization and active management support for customers deploying Linux on Z-Series servers.

"Lufthansa Systems has been using Softek Storage Manager and Softek SANView since the beginning of the year to manage our logical space utilization and monitor our SAN," said Curt Borschel, manager of Enterprise Storage Management at Lufthansa Systems. "The Softek ESRM suite has enabled us to better understand and manage our storage environment. Performance management is an important and logical extension of our storage management requirements and we're delighted to see the introduction of advanced performance capabilities integrated with an ESRM solution."

"Softek's new Storage Performance Tuner is a great addition to their portfolio of storage management solutions," said Nancy Hurley, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "Softek's solution provides a level of storage network performance analysis that we have not seen in other management offerings. The proactive nature of this solution, combined with the in-depth diagnosis and corrective recommendations will enable users to quickly pinpoint and solve performance problems."

New features for Softek SANView 5.5 include:

• SMI-S Support: Softek SANView 5.5 introduces SMI-S support for management of devices conforming to the SNIA SMI-S standard.
• Updated support for storage arrays: Softek SANView 5.5 updates the storage hardware support for current versions of EMC Clarion, EMC DMX and Hitachi Data Systems 9900V series of arrays.
• Updated support for Fibre Channel switches and directors: Softek SANView 5.5 updates the switch and hardware support for current versions of Brocade and McDATA switches and directors.