DALLAS -- Implementing a solid storage architecture is probably as difficult as decorating your house to look like Martha Stewart's.
It's certainly as complex and as expensive.
But, those who know what they want and have planned accordingly will have an easier time of it.
That's the strategy behind Veritas Software's latest initiative, a software and services model designed to make it easier for users to make the correct storage buying decisions.
The roadmap, dubbed Veritas Adaptive Software Architecture, was announced Tuesday during the Veritas Vision 2002 user conference.
The move leverages the Mountain View, Calif.-based company's position as a leading provider of cross-platform products. The move was strengthened further with Veritas' announcement Tuesday that its storage management software is available on IBM AIX, a high-end Unix operating system. Veritas already supports IBM's pSeries platform.
According to Veritas Executive Vice President of Product Operations Mark Bregman, storage users working without this roadmap is like users walking into an unorganized furniture showroom. There's lots of furniture, but you can't really get a sense of what table goes with what chair.
"When decorating a house, you just don't buy random pieces of furniture," he said. "Ethan Allen puts the Colonial style over there and the Scandanavian over here?so you can see how it all fits together," said Bregman."
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This initiative is an attempt to give users a way to implement an architecture by seeing everything that's available and how it all works together.
"We have a lot of parts and we show users how it can all be put together," he said.
The sentiment here is that partnerships and product offerings are all over the map and no one knows from one day to the next, who's got what.
"It makes it tough to make a decision," said Dan Shuart, director of IT, Oklahoma Publishing Co., Oklahoma City, Okla.
Stephen Elliot, research director, Hurwitz Group, a Framingham, Mass.-based research firm said that the Adaptive Storage Architecture is a framework for more automated solutions.
"They're saying we've got all these products that work on all these platforms, here's where we're going with them," said Elliot. "It gives users a roadmap as to where all this fits into the scheme of things."
A major component of the initiative is the software maker's partner program, which is also announced this week. Major vendors, including Compaq, Dell, and EMC, support the Veritas Enabled partner program. The program includes the sharing of application programming interfaces (APIs), development, testing, validation and support.
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