"Most of our customers started by automating the tasks for server provisioning [but] they are increasingly buying into the bigger story," says Helen Tang, Opsware's director of product marketing.
The vendor's storage plans appear to be tied up in a product called Application Storage Automation System (ASAS), which will be launched in mid-September. (See HP to Buy Opsware for $1.6B and HP to Acquire Opsware.) The vendor got its hands on the core technology behind ASAS when it acquired Creekpath for $10 million in July 2006 and has been running beta tests on the product for the last few months, according to Tang. (See Opsware Gains CreekPath, Opsware Outlines Storage Plan, and Opsware Opens Up on Storage.)
At this stage, specific details of the ASAS software remain somewhat blurry, particularly how it will automate storage. "It's a single pane of glass view of servers and storage," says Tang, vaguely. "You can change server and storage configurations and run a single compliance report."
The exec adds that ASAS will offer an "application-centric" perspective on managing storage, which suggests that the software could be tied to products, such as Oracle's 10g database. (See Oracle Extends 10g, Onaro, Oracle Team Up, and IBM, Oracle Join Forces.) Tang nonetheless admits that the product is targeted more at server admins than their storage counterparts.
Despite the progress, bringing storage into the automation loop will be a slow and steady process, fueled only by demand that suppliers can actually quantify. The coming months should reveal more about how committed end users are to be adding storage to IT automation, and how responsive their suppliers will be.
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