nt for
Storage Resource Management
and SAN Management Software, 2007
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00146578, Dave Russell, Robert E. Passmore, 19 March 2007
SRM vendors provide products that are mandatory for the
effective management of shared storage environments. Niche
vendors can offer solutions for functions not addressed by
general-purpose products or to provide a lower-cost alternative
when only a portion of the SRM functionality is required.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
In 2005, Gartner merged its Magic Quadrants for storage area network (SAN) management
software and storage resource management (SRM). Requirements for the individual and
combined markets have continued to merge and advance.
For SAN management, Brocade (formerly McData) and Onaro represent the pure-play SAN
solutions; they do not attempt to offer all SRM functions. Similarly, vendors such as Northern
Parklife, NTP Software and TeraCloud focus solely on file capacity planning and file
management.
Breakthrough technologies, such as root cause, change management and performance
management, are available from Akorri, EMC and Onaro. Onaro has delivered change
management and root cause, and continues to add features and gain customers. EMC has
brought its Smarts offering to the storage space with some traction, addressing root-cause
diagnosis. Recently, Akorri has entered the market to offer comprehensive cross-domain
performance management, which includes storage.
CA, EMC, HP, IBM and Symantec provide comprehensive SRM solutions. Of the five major
vendors, IBM made the most notable progress in the past 18 months, with the introduction of
its TotalStorage Productivity Center (TPC) 3.1, which offers significant improvements in
integration, ease of use and functionality, combined with an effective bundling and sales
campaign. Relatively little is new with the other four vendors' suites. EMC now has EMC
ControlCenter (ECC) 6.0 in beta, so we primarily rated it on its version 5 release. All the
remaining suite vendors, including EMC, have made minor improvements in functionality
through service packs or point releases.
Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), which delivers HP's SRM solution through OEM agreements,
also brings its own portfolio of SRM capabilities to the market, as does Network Appliance
(NetApp) with its network-attached storage (NAS) and block-based storage fibre channel,
Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) management portfolio and a co-branded
Symantec SRM offering.
Little progress has been made since the last Magic Quadrant in filling out the significant holes
and capability gaps in the SRM segment. This leads us to examine the future direction of the
segment and whether the comprehensive suites offered by these vendors will be completed 2
to provide a single unified solution for managing a
shared storage environment. Possibly, the market will
devolve to where effective management is best
accomplished by several, potentially overlapping,
point products.
For a vendor to improve its position in a Magic
Quadrant, it must track to the new market
requirements and move ahead of them. As the SRM
market evolves, expectations and requirements
change. Because the Magic Quadrant is scored each
year relative to the current market, vendors that have
made slower progress than the overall market can
appear to have moved backward, when, in fact, the
entire market has moved forward. This was the case
for CA and Symantec, which have moved
incrementally forward, but not at the same rate as
the market.
STRATEGIC PLANNING ASSUMPTION(S)
Through 2010, no single vendor will provide all the
necessary SRM functionality (0.8 probability).
By 2012, one to two large SRM vendors will lead the
market with a comprehensive SRM product (0.6
probability), or the SRM market will devolve back to
point solutions (0.4 probability).
MAGIC QUADRANT
Market Overview
The SRM segment, including SAN management
software, grew slightly in 2005 and showed modest
growth in 2006. The SRM market is forecast to grow
at a compound annual growth rate of 9.3%, taking
the segment to $936 million in 2010. EMC, despite
service pack updates, did not deliver on ECC 6.0, and revenue
was essentially flat. IBM and, to a lesser extent, CA, HP and
Symantec showed modest growth. Niche vendors are too small to
affect the overall market; however, some small vendors are
demonstrating solid traction, and new vendors continue to be
attracted to the segment.
The SRM market has changed throughout the years. The talk in
2000 was about a single pane of glass to manage the enterprise.
The reality was that SRM tools were frequently used for quota
management and basic reporting, and SAN management was in
its infancy. In 2003 and 2004, SRM tools added features, including
merging SAN management and device management capabilities.
The latter function was mature from a passive management
perspective at that point in time. However, in some cases, these
merged functions were simply launched from the SRM console
without any deep integration, and many functions remained in the
domain of element managers.
In 2006 and the first part of 2007, the SRM market featured two
types of tools: Traditional, comprehensive SRM offerings have continued to
add functions, with an emphasis on product integration. A
consolidated infrastructure (agent, console and repository), with
significantly easier to use and deploy offerings, are becoming
the norm, with fewer launched components. In addition,
replication management capabilities are included.
challengers
leaders
niche players
visionaries
completeness of vision
ability to execute
As of March 2007
IBM
EMC
Network Appliance
Onaro
Akorri
TeraCloud
Brocade Northern Parklife
CA
Tek-Tools Symantec
Hitachi Data Systems
HP
NTP Software
Source: Gartner (March 2007)
Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Storage Resource Management
and SAN Management Software, 2007
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted March 2007 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a market-
place at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors
placed in the Leaders quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner dis-
claims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
© 2007 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is
forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy,
completeness or adequacy of such information. Although Gartners research may discuss legal issues related to the information technology business, Gartner
does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or
inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. 3 The more-focused SRM tool has emerged. Rather than being
all-encompassing solutions, these new offerings address a
particular piece of the storage management space. Examples
include products from Akorri for performance management,
Onaro for change management and TeraCloud for storage
capacity analytics. Large vendor examples of this are EMC's
Smarts solutions and Symantec's Veritas Backup Reporter.
Regardless of the vendor, large-scale deployments will often
require professional services to install and configure the solution.
It is important to note that a vendor's position on the Magic
Quadrant should not be equated to a product's attractiveness or
suitability for every client's requirements. It can be perfectly
acceptable to acquire solutions from vendors that are not in the
Leader's quadrant if the solutions better fit your needs, have the
appropriate support capabilities and are attractively priced.
Market Definition/Description
SRM products provide data collection and automation agents that
consolidate and operate on information from multiple platforms
supporting storage management tools on multiple operating
systems (OSs), storage products and SAN devices. Key functions
include capacity reporting/analysis, performance reporting/analysis,
capacity/performance management automation, storage
provisioning, storage management product integration, application
and database integration, and hardware integration. SRM solutions
should integrate with network and system management offerings
to enable the SRM product to externalize events to other
management products. Integration with device resource and
replication management products, as well as media management
products, should include launching hardware configuration utilities
from the SRM console, collecting/reporting agent information and
integrating logical level data. Products that provide for discovery,
topology mapping and monitoring SAN components are also
included in this segment because many are being included with
SRM suites or expanding to include SRM functionality.
Key components of an SRM solution include: Central administrative console: The console