IBM Debuts Storage Management Suite For Heterogeneous Data Centers

IBM on Tuesday rolled out the TotalStorage Productivity Center, a suite of storage management software that ties together a heterogeneous storage cluster.

The Center, a collection of tools that integrates with its Tivoli storage line and its TotalStorage Virtualization family, will serve as a central management point for administrators to wrestle with storage hardware, maintain the storage network, and retrieve data on performance, said IBM.

Another element in IBM's ongoing on-demand initiative, the TotalStorage Productivity Center promises to automate many of the chores storage managers now do manually, such as monitoring workloads and avoiding storage bottlenecks.

By consolidating multiple storage devices -- even those not with the Big Blue brand -- the package will help companies get the most out of their existing storage network and lower costs, said IBM.

The TotalStorage Productivity Center uses the Storage Management Interface Specification (SMI-S) to achieve interoperability between disparate vendors' hardware and software.The new suite will ship in May at configurations starting at $5,000.