The majority of Netreon’s assets are to be acquired, CA said, along with most of its staff. Netreon was founded in September 2000, and has around a dozen customers.
Only two weeks ago CA launched its first SAN management tool, called BrightStor SAN Manager, joining the market late compared to systems management rivals such as IBM Corp’s subsidiary Tivoli. In around three months time CA will complete the integration of Netreon’s SANexec Designer software with SAN Manager and other BrightStor tools. Among other things SANexec Designer will share a repository with other BrightStor tools. Sharing a repository may sound unhygienic, but it is a key part of any software integration because it allows configuration data to be passed from tool to tool automatically without the need for operators to re-key data.
SANexec Designer will help in the creation of new storage networks, by producing wiring diagrams, bills of material, switch zoning reports, and even cabling labels. CA stressed that the software also includes interoperability matrices. This will let you validate the network before you roll it out. We think this is one of the gates to adoption of SANs, said Nigel Turner, senior vice president of storage brand management.
Whether the tool will be bought and used by end-user customers or by systems integrators isn’t clear. According to Turner, not all first-time storage network builders buy a ready-made SAN-in-a-box that obviates the need for a design tool. Not all SANs are pre-configured – especially not at enterprise customers, who shop around for the lowest cost components, he said.
According to Turner, SANexec manager can also be used as a discovery tool with existing storage networks to produce diagrams of SANs, both physical and logical, and can compare original design specifications with what has actually been built.
Source: Computerwire
