News

posted on 08 July 2008 14:10

3PAR has announced a new InForm Management Console, also enhancements to its Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) provider designed to enable heterogeneous enterprise management.

The 3PAR InForm Management Console is a completely re-architected replacement for the InForm Graphical User Interface (GUI) previously used for point-and-click management of 3PAR InServ Storage Servers. It includes new features to enable smarter management of all InServ models and is so easy to use that it requires only a handful of intuitive, well-supported actions for complete functionality and system administration. It also provides rich instrumentation of all physical and logical objects for one or more InServs.

The new InForm Management Console includes the following features:

* Quick Filter—Easy filtering of tabular data for quick access to vital system information
* Wizards—New wizards require fewer mouse clicks to configure volumes
* 3PAR Virtual Domains Management—Complete view of all Virtual Domains including user management and details on all connected systems for consolidated control of Virtual Domains
* Charting Functions—Enhanced charting functions enabling specified objects to be graphed separately or in aggregate (where data from multiple systems can be graphed on the same chart) and offering preservation of chart settings for later use
* Data Export—Flexible export of InForm Management Console data in CSV or HTML file formats

SMI-S Enhancements

3PAR supports SNIA's efforts to develop SMI-S, a common, open storage management interface supported by heterogeneous networked storage devices and management applications. 3PAR has developed the discovery, monitoring, and management capabilities of the SMI-S specification. 3PAR’s latest SMI-S enhancements, which are certified by SNIA's Conformance Testing Program (SNIA-CTP) suite for compliance with SNIA's SMI-S v1.1 specifications, include the following:

* Volume Provisioning—In addition to discovering and monitoring storage volumes, enables users to actively create and provision 3PAR base volumes using SMI-S clients.
* Performance Statistics—Gives users the ability to retrieve performance statistics for ports, virtual capacity, and physical capacity.
* LUN Masking and Mapping—Enables users to see which storage volumes are visible to which hosts, whether connected via Fibre Channel or iSCSI.

3PAR’s SMI-S provider has been designed to SNIA specifications to integrate with management applications from leading SMI-S client vendors including HP, Onaro, Symantec, and Tek-Tools Software.

Ryan Bonnett, IT Administrator for The Generations Network, parent company of leading online family history resource Ancestry.com, said: "3PAR’s SMI-S integration with Tek-Tools and latest enhancements provide us with simple, more comprehensive storage management capabilities. The visibility provided by Tek-Tools Profiler into our 3PAR InServ Storage Servers offers valuable information to optimise our storage investment without sacrificing performance."

Both the 3PAR Inform Management Console and the 3PAR enhancements to SMI-S are available now. 3PAR is an active member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and SNIA Europe.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}