I found your comment interesting when you noted how a company could "avoid the software, to save cost..."

In reality, wouldn't you agree the cost to maintain SAN documentation over the long run could be 3-5x the cost of what the software would initially cost $50k-$100k?

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Management costs are usually in direct proportion to the size of the environment needing to be managed. That's why I included the following paragraph in my reply to the question you are speaking of:

"Getting a good software package that will go out and scan the SAN for components and auto-document for you is almost a must have in very large SANs. Be aware though that there is no one perfect software solution available today. Each storage management application has something it does very well and other things that may need improvement."

Let's put it in perspective. If you have smaller SAN, have skilled staff, document the heck out of it and keep your documentation up to date, you may be able to save money by doing all the management yourself.

In larger SANs, without help from management tools, cost can add up quickly, mostly in the time and people costs spent in troubleshooting and provisioning.

Chris

Editor's note: Do you agree with this expert's response? If you have more to share, post it in one of our .bphAaR2qhqA^0@/searchstorage>discussion forums.


This was first published in August 2003

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