Press Releases

3PAR Debuts Native SMI-S Interoperability For Utility Storage

Avoids brittle proxy-based SMI-S approaches, simplifies the SAN

Fremont, CA, US - November 10, 2004

3PAR®, the leading provider of Utility Storage, announced today that it successfully demonstrated native support and interoperability with the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) at Storage Networking World in Orlando, Florida. Through the use of open standards, Utility Storage enables heterogeneous enterprise management software and storage resource management (SRM) software to manage a virtualized storage pool without deployment of dedicated SAN-based virtualization appliances, a tremendous cost savings for customers.

"3PAR believes that core virtualization functions are best implemented in the array, and that heterogeneous management should be done by customers' existing enterprise management or SRM software. SMI-S is the key enabler for this," said David Scott, President and Chief Executive Officer of 3PAR. "The combination of SMI-S enabled Utility Storage and enterprise management software eliminates the need for complex and brittle SAN-based virtualization appliances."

In the absence of standards, one of the few contributions of the new breed of SAN-based virtualization appliances is heterogeneous LUN management. Unfortunately, the use of these appliances brings with it additional layers of complexity and results in a brittle storage infrastructure. SMI-S support and interoperability enables heterogeneous LUN management without dedicated virtualization appliances that add significant cost.

"Storage utilization is a huge problem. While there are a lot of vendors out there pushing their own virtualization solutions to address this, only a few are going to win in the long term. The type of implementation that 3PAR brings to the market is one that has legs," said Steve Duplessie, Founder and Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "With this SMI-S announcement, 3PAR shows how its customers can get heterogeneous LUN management of their virtualized storage without having to rely on the additional management and interoperability headaches of dedicated appliances."

At last month's Storage Networking World conference, 3PAR demonstrated SMI-S interoperability with CreekPath, a leading SRM solution, and IBM/Tivoli, a leading enterprise management software solution. Critical discovery capabilities will allow a customer to monitor the 3PAR InServ Storage Server within a heterogeneous storage environment using SMI-S compliant storage management platforms.

3PAR's SMI-S provider represents a second-generation approach to SMI-S development. It is integrated directly within the storage array, as opposed to many first-generation solutions that require a separate proxy server to convert legacy APIs to SMI-S. First generation approaches can also create a single-point-of-failure and greater complexity in a customer's storage management environment. Conversely, native implementations are simpler, more robust and offer more efficient options for custom extensibility of the SMI-S standard.

3PAR is a member company of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and is committed to the support of open management standards. The company is also a participant in the Storage Management Initiative Lab 5, which focuses on the interoperability testing of SMI-S based client and provider products.

About 3PAR
3PAR® (NYSE Arca: PAR) is the leading global provider of utility storage, a category of highly virtualized, tightly-clustered, and dynamically-tiered storage arrays built for utility computing. Organizations use utility computing to build cost-effective virtualized IT infrastructures for flexible workload consolidation. 3PAR Utility Storage gives customers an alternative to traditional arrays by delivering resilient infrastructure with increased agility at a lower total cost to meet their rapidly changing business needs. As a pioneer of thin provisioning — a green technology developed to address storage underutilization and inefficiencies — 3PAR offers products designed to minimize power consumption and promote environmental responsibility. With 3PAR, customers have reduced the costs of allocated storage capacity, administration, and SAN infrastructure while increasing adaptability and resiliency. 3PAR Utility Storage is built to meet the demands of open systems consolidation, integrated data lifecycle management, and performance-intensive applications.