AppIQ Adds IQ

AppIQ Inc. has added more smarts to its SAN management software, building toward its goal to be Command Central for heterogeneous storage networks.

On Monday, the vendor will announce its StorageAuthority Suite R4.0. Billed as its biggest announcement this year, the package adds the following features:

AppIQ will also announced that it's passed certification with IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and supports the vendor's ESS Shark gear as well as the IBM DS4000 series, which it supported before.

One thing is notably missing in all this: While AppIQ supports IP connectivity via NetApp gear with this release and has demonstrated generic iSCSI SAN management features at tradeshows, the vendor doesn't actually offer that function in its product yet. AppIQ slates 2006 for general availability on that one. And until that happens, it can't really claim both Fibre Channel and IP SAN compatibility.

That said, it can't be denied that AppIQ's acting on its goal to become a leading heterogeneous storage network management package. It's also racking up notches in its belt of OEMs.It's current OEMs include Engenio Information Technologies Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) (NYSE: SGI), and Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW).

What: No IBM? Here's how AppIQ's VP of marketing Tom Rose answers that one: "Our goal is to dominate the space for managing heterogenous storage infrastructure. We hope to broaden our partnerships and OEMs." Get the hint, Big Blue?

Therein could lie the little crack in AppIQ's dike. Even as it's pushing to be an easy-to-use universal storage management interface, so are other, larger players, like Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) (NYSE: CA) and IBM itself, not to mention CommVault Systems Inc. and Veritas.

Then again, AppIQ is treading nimbly ahead of larger players in getting to the heart of what some customers really want. One of those customers, Chris Pringle, assistant VP of infrastructure engineering at the Boston Stock Exchange, says he's been using the beta version of the NetBackup module and thinks it's unique. "Now we have one GUI that saves time for our operations people," he notes. Where Veritas has its own backup reporting, that data can now be included in a single SAN map that lets him drill down to the host and application level to see what's happening with capacity and performance.

Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch0