Originating Author: Peter Burris
Storage resource management (SRM) technologies are being positioned as substitutes for high-cost storage administration labor, among other benefits. However, the Wikibon community reports that the tendency of SRM systems to saturate administrators with alerts can actually lead to a greater demand for storage personnel, especially at larger, more complex scales of operation. Rather than defaulting to buying programs that reflect process, storage administrators are better advised to adopt planning, provisioning, tuning, retiring, etc., practices that can move them closer to SRM ideals, without requiring an uncertain SRM technology implementation.
Action Item: Do not base an SRM business case on labor savings, except in smaller IT shops. Trading seasoned practitioners for immature -- or worse, suspect -- technology rarely leads to improved operations and business services.
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