SMI Tutorial > What is SMI? > The Advantages of the SMI-S Technology
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The Advantages of the SMI-S Technology |
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Advantages of SMI-S
The adoption of standards that evolve from the SMI-S increase the rapid deployment of interoperable storage networks, expanding vendors' addressable markets. It also allows them to focus on developing value-added functionality at a level higher than protocol interconnectivity.
Management application developers will be able to support devices from multiple vendors quickly and reliably because they 'look and behave alike'. Development and testing costs will drop; time to market will shorten; IT and end-user satisfaction will increase; and ultimately, cost benefits will result.
IT Administrators have been vocal about the need for greater reliability and predictability in the solutions that they purchase to address the data explosion they face. In addition to providing independent validation of the products they are evaluating, conformance to the SMI-S standard provides a pathway to other important values they seek.
IT Administrators are looking for greater flexibility in choosing the “right” solution as well as freedom to avoid “lock-in” as a result of limited interoperability of products from one vendor with those of another. The goal of these efforts is to reduce the management complexity and costs of operation, in short, to find solutions that simply work with what they have. While CTP validation of SMI-S conformance alone does not guarantee everything that IT Professionals are demanding, it is a significant step towards achieving simplicity in the evolution of the storage infrastructure.
The CTP assists vendors in reaching objectives that have a direct benefit to end users, even though CTP and SMI by
and large operate totally out of view of the IT Professional. The functions of the SMI-S work deep within vendor products to support features that allow for automated no-touch discovery. The SMI-S also enables consistent monitoring of performance and health of storage products even though the devices may come from different manufacturers. For security to truly benefit IT organizations, it must be built into the data management operating environment, which is happening as the SMI-S evolves into a more mature architecture.
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