Storage Management: The SNIA Technical Tutorial

This booklet provides a basic grounding in the history of network management interfaces and interface definitions as a background and introduction to the work being performed by the SNIA as part of the Storage Management Initiative. It has contrasted the characteristics of predecessor definitions with the SNIA SMI, and described how the richness of the information model and extensibility of the definitions can support new functionality. It has provided an overview of technology underlying the definitions produced by SMI and the application of those definitions to the management of types of equipment commonly found in a storage network. Development tools that are available to speed the adoption of the underlying technologies in management applications have been described, and future developments in those technologies anticipated. In short, the booklet has provided a primer for SNIA members to the exciting developments in management technologies now taking place. The SMI program in SNIA is building toward the “holy grail” of storage management—namely, the situation in which an application can discover a previously unseen type of device in a storage network and immediately bind to it and provide a level of management functionality. SNIA members are requested to use the information provided in this text and the references contained in the appendices to enhance their products and management applications and significantly simplify the administrative burden imposed by storage networks, thus literally helping to fulfill the “efficient” part of the SNIA mission.

Objectives of this text include:

• Define terminology used in established network management and developed anew for storage networking
• Provide a brief history of the development of management tools for networks, covering both the advent of the Internet and developments in the Internet Engineering Task Force
• Describe current network management approaches, with particular emphasis
  on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
• Explain object modeling techniques, with specific reference to the Common
  Information Model (CIM) and related DMTF definitions
• Detail specific models of types of equipment found in a storage network
• Introduce tools that can be used in the development of both management applications and device support
• Highlight the goals of continuing development within the SMI

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