Overview of Major IT Management and Storage Management Software Solutions

With the explosion of data and the diversification of applications, enterprise IT environments have become increasingly complex, leading to challenges in device monitoring, problem detection, and resource management. IT management software was created to address these issues by providing monitoring, management, and control (M‑C‑C) capabilities.

Based on enterprise size, IT management solutions can be grouped into three stages: NSM (Network Service Management) for small businesses, ITSM (IT Service Management) for medium‑sized organizations, and BSM (Business Service Management) for large enterprises. The focus shifts from basic supervision to comprehensive monitoring, automation, and control as the scale grows.

The article then reviews major vendors and their storage‑related management products:

IBM : Tivoli Storage Productivity Center (TPC) for capacity and performance management, and IBM OMNIbus for service‑level monitoring and alert handling.

Microsoft : System Center suite, including Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) for provisioning and managing virtual resources, and Operations Manager (SCOM) for unified monitoring and alerting.

HP : A portfolio covering HP Storage Essentials, Systems Insight Manager, OpenView, Operations Manager, SiteScope, Network Node Manager, Operations Orchestration, OneView, and Universal CMDB (uCMDB), each addressing various aspects of storage monitoring, control, and automation.

BMC : Solutions such as ProactiveNet Performance Management (BPPM) for monitoring, Atrium Orchestrator (BAO) for workflow automation, Patrol for agent‑based monitoring, Portal for agent‑less monitoring, and Capacity Optimization (BCO) for capacity planning.

CA : Spectrum and Nimsoft Monitor, with Nimsoft focusing on modular, scalable monitoring and management.

EMC : ViPR SRM for heterogeneous storage resource management and Data Protection Advisor for backup and replication monitoring.

NetApp : OnCommand Insight suite (Insight Assure, Perform, Plan, Discover) for performance monitoring, resource optimization, and inventory discovery.

Hitachi : Command Suite offering unified management across block, file, and content storage.

VMware : vCenter Plug‑in and VASA Provider enabling storage management and awareness within the vSphere environment.

ZOHO : OpStor for SAN/NAS monitoring and topology visualization.

Symantec : Veritas Command Central (now replaced by Veritas Operations Manager) for cross‑platform storage and server management.

SolarWinds : Storage Resource Monitor (SRM) with profiling and Orion modules, plus Kiwi Syslog for alert handling.

Open‑source tools : Nagios, OpenNMS, and Zabbix provide free, extensible monitoring solutions for networks and storage devices.

Overall, the article serves as a reference guide for IT professionals seeking to understand the landscape of enterprise storage and IT management software.