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Hitachi HiCommand� Global Link Availability Manager software � An Essential Tool for Application Availability

By John Webster, Senior Analyst and Founder, Data Mobility Group

When an issue arises in the application environment such as an outage or, more often, poor performance, IT administrators often find themselves at odds with each other when it comes to determining the cause. Moreover, storage administrators are at a loss and must waste hours if they don�t have the tools required to quickly diagnose the problem from the standpoint of the storage environment. End-to-end I/O path management has therefore become a �must have� for storage administrators who are tasked with managing medium-to-large-scale storage fabrics. Now, Hitachi Data Systems has taken another step toward fulfilling this need with Hitachi HiCommand� Global Link Availability Manager software.

Global Link Availability Manager software works in conjunction with Hitachi HiCommand Dynamic Link Manager software, an established application that runs in the server environment, to automate I/O load balancing, path failover, and recovery capabilities. Supporting multiple active paths with I/O load balancing ensures that no single path becomes congested and overworked while another is underutilized. Dynamic Link Manager software is supported on the major open systems operating system platforms including IBM� AIX�, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Linux, and Microsoft Windows. Supported storage platforms include Hitachi TagmaStore Workgroup Modular Storage, Adaptable Modular Storage, Network Storage Controller, and Universal Storage Platform lines of storage and EMC Symmetrix DMX series and CLARiiON CX series storage systems.

Global Link Availability Manager software essentially aggregates the data generated by Dynamic Link Manager software instances and presents to the storage administrator a consolidated management console for these multiple Dynamic Link Manager software instances. Storage administrators using multiple instances of Dynamic Link Manager software in conjunction with the Global Link Availability Manager software console will now have the following capabilities:

  • A real time, graphical user interface (GUI) representation of all I/O paths under Dynamic Link Manager software management so that the location of the path failure can be quickly pinpointed from the viewpoint of a consolidated management console.
  • Reports and alerts generated by Dynamic Link Manager software instances are displayed near real-time. I/O path mapping includes each host, host bus adapter port, storage system, and storage port.
  • I/O path views can be aggregated on the basis of path online or offline status and adjusted for single or multiple hosts.
  • I/O load balancing can be accomplished for both individual and/or for multiple logical units (LUs) from a single console.
  • Dynamic Link Manager software instances can be grouped together and managed as a single unit so that storage administrators can apply a tailored set of management parameters to all Dynamic Link Manager software instances within a single group. Upgrades can be applied to groupings of Dynamic Link Manager software instances as well instead of applying them one at a time.
The integration of Global Link Availability Manager software with Dynamic Link Manager software will become an essential tool for storage administrators wishing to adopt the Services Oriented Storage Solutions� solution methodology. Via the Global Link Availability Manager software management console, a storage administrator can now more easily establish, monitor, and manage storage service level objectives for specific applications and/or grouping of applications. Storage administrators can now control path bandwidth based on application priority and optimize application-to-storage path reliability and performance under varying workloads. These capabilities will be especially useful in environments that include increasing numbers of servers, server-farms, and blade systems�all running user-facing applications that are now considered to be business-critical.

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