Policy-based automation of storage provisioning
iWave Software announced iWave Storage Automator version 6, a storage automation software product that lets enterprise IT organizations and service providers deliver Storage as a Service using their existing storage environments.
By allowing end users to provision their own storage via a service portal, iWave Storage Automator 6 helps IT organizations lower storage operating costs, support more storage with fewer administrators and improve end user satisfaction, while enforcing best practices for storage provisioning.
“The goal of storage automation software like iWave Storage Automator is to have less people spend less time focused on managing storage,” said George Crump, CEO of analyst firm Storage Switzerland. “While not a replacement for skilled storage administrators, these next-generation storage automation products incorporate concepts from the cloud automation world and offer the promise of significant productivity gains by enabling administrators to create and offer automated storage services directly to their users via a self-service portal and catalog.”
Key features of iWave Storage Automator 6:
Policy-based storage selection: provides a sophisticated rules engine that can automatically match an application or host-operating system’s storage requirement to the most appropriate storage resources. This ensures that the right storage is allocated for the right application.
Multi-tenant, self-service portal and catalog: offers an intuitive user interface that lets end users quickly and easily order automated storage services. Service providers can leverage the portal to offer storage services to multiple customers over the Internet.
End-to-end automated storage services: offers automated storage provisioning, reclamation and remediation services. Provisioning services include automatically selecting the best possible storage, provisioning the storage, manipulating the storage fabric and configuring the host operating system or application to use the storage.
RESTful storage API: iWave automated storage services can be used through iWave’s storage API. Enterprise IT organizations and service providers can easily integrate iWave Storage Automator 6 into their existing portal or enterprise orchestration tool using the storage API.
Change control, scheduling and notification: organizations can leverage their existing change management system with iWave Storage Automator 6. All automated services can be scheduled to run during maintenance windows and provide email notification when they have completed.
Service level options: allows enterprise IT departments and service providers to offer “Gold,” “Silver,” and “Bronze” storage services that are driven by the tier of storage and data protection policies applied.
Chargeback: offers chargeback information for storage provisioned using iWave Storage Automator 6. This chargeback information can be fed into an enterprise IT department’s or service provider’s billing system.