Brains of storage?

Some storage resource management (SRM) vendors describe their products as the brains of storage.

Not everyone agrees with that assessment. Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing at DataCore Software Corp., believes network virtualization obviates the need for at least some of SRM's capabilities. DataCore's SANsymphony virtualization product does automatic provisioning, for example.

Other observers cast doubt on both SRM and virtualization as the storage brain trust, pointing out that intelligence may occur in firmware, storage operating systems or storage-area network (SAN) switches. For example, EMC Corp. this month agreed to develop storage management software for an upcoming SAN switch from Brocade Communications Systems Inc.

Such roving intelligence is old hat to Barry Ader, director of open-software marketing at EMC. "Intelligence, for a long time in our industry, has lived in multiple places," he said. "I see that continuing."