News
Precise/W. Quinn Releases StorageCentral SRM 5.0
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/07/2001
Precise Software Solutions released a major upgrade to W.Quinn's StorageCentral SRM enterprise storage performance management suite this week that features tight integration with Microsoft's Active Directory.
SRM 5.0 is the first major product release for W. Quinn since Precise, an application performance management solution provider, acquired the Windows NT/2000-focused storage software company in September. Development of the product latest version was nearing completion when the acquisition took place.
Precise says StorageCentral SRM is the first storage resource management software to leverage Microsoft's Active Directory for centrally locating appropriate storage management policies in a Windows enterprise.
With the Active Directory integration in the 5.0 release, Precise ranks among the early endorsers of Microsoft's Windows 2000 directory technology across all Windows-focused tools and applications. Active Directory deployments are currently not widespread, and relatively few applications leverage the Active Directory.
StorageCentral SRM 5.0 will not depend on the Active Directory, however. Windows NT shops and mixed Windows NT/Windows 2000 environments can use the technology with version 5.0 that existed in earlier versions of StorageCentral SRM.
Those customers that do use the Active Directory will be able to centrally locate storage policies for use on any Windows storage device throughout the enterprise, providing consistent execution and enforcement of corporate storage policies, according to Precise. W. Quinn earlier announced an exclusive relationship for providing storage resource management technologies within Microsoft's Server Appliance Kit for creating server appliances such as NAS devices.
With the Active Directory release, Precise is reinforcing its commitment to the Windows storage market, according to Najaf Husain, General Manager, Precise/W. Quinn.
"We believe that data storage on the Windows operating system is both the most costly to implement and maintain while simultaneously the most vulnerable to exponential growth. A recent IDC report predicts that the Windows-based storage resource management software market segment will outgrow all other operating systems in 2002, reaching over $500 million," Husain says.
StorageCentral SRM 5.0 is available immediately for $1,295 per server for Windows NT and Windows 2000 Advanced Server and $4,995 per server running Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.
Other features of the new version include best practices culled from StorageCentral's 3,500 customers for controlling storage growth. The policies include allocating and monitoring storage space among end users, files and application servers; automatically triggering Web-based storage management reports to pinpoint problem storage areas; executing pre-defined policies to correct problems; blocking undesirable files from being stored on servers, and generating historical reports and trends on space usage for capacity planning purchasing decisions.
Developers from Precise and W. Quinn plan to work together to integrate StorageCentral SRM into Precise product lines in upcoming versions.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.