MonoSphere® Enhances Storage Capacity Management for NetApp® Storage Environments

MonoSphere® Enhances Storage Capacity Management for NetApp® Storage Environments

MonoSphere Inc., creator of award-winning storage capacity management software, today introduced Storage Horizon 3.4, a comprehensive solution delivering storage capacity management capabilities to Network Appliance™ (NetApp®) storage environments. Ideal for managing large storage environments, this enterprise-class software solution provides Global 3000 companies with a unified view of current and projected storage capacity usage, giving companies the insight to develop effective storage capacity plans and maximize utilization of existing and future storage assets.

Storage Horizon has been enhanced to support NetApp Qtree, FlexVol, FlexClone, and Snapshot technologies, providing a complete solution to optimally manage the capacity of NetApp filers. It is particularly suited to managing the capacity of large environments consisting of many filers.

For Qtrees, NetApp’s commonly used storage quota system, the Storage Horizon software provides the necessary analysis to help users quickly understand important issues such as when Qtree usage is over allocated, if the sum of all Qtree allocations is greater than the size of the volume, which Qtrees are forecasted to exceed critical utilization thresholds, and which Qtrees are over-provisioned.

In addition to support for Qtrees, MonoSphere also delivers new support for FlexVols, which provide the basis for NetApp’s storage virtualization technology enabling capabilities such as thin provisioning. In MonoSphere’s July 2007 survey of 249 senior storage professionals at mid- to large-sized companies, users indicated that the three biggest drawbacks of implementing thin provisioning technology are the increased risk of running out of storage, increased complexity, and the lack of thin provisioning management tools. A total of 77 percent of those surveyed said that a storage capacity management solution that decreased the complexity and risk of managing a thin provisioned environment would increase their use of thin provisioning. The Storage Horizon software solves these challenges for NetApp environments by providing the necessary analysis to quickly understand important issues such as which aggregates are running out of available space for non-space guaranteed storage, which are forecasted to exceed critical utilization thresholds, the size, usage and growth of both space and non-space guaranteed FlexVols; and the degree to which an aggregate is over-provisioned.

“Many storage administrators have delayed deploying thin provisioning because of the additional risks and complexities involved in this relatively new technology,” said Bob Laliberte, analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “Storage Horizon, an independent, 3rd party software solution, has solved these issues for NetApp users, allowing them to increase their deployments of thinly provisioned environments and manage these environments with greater confidence.”

The Storage Horizon software also has been enhanced to support NetApp’s Snapshot technology, which provides point-in-time copies of file systems. The Storage Horizon software provides the necessary analysis which allows users to quickly understand important issues such as if snapshot reserve is effectively sized, when the snapshot usage is greater than snapshot reserve, or when snapshot reserves are projected to run out.