This Storage "Wish List" is based on the

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) 5 Phases

Assess - know what you have where and what it is doing for whom. Be able to know Configuration, ROI, TCO at a glance.

1. Ability to capture and report the external "Speed Limit of the Information Universe"
   1. From source to destination per request
   2. For all requests
2. Ability to capture and report the internal "Speed Limit of the Information Universe"
   1. How long did it take to service any request and all requests within the Unit of Technology
3. Generates I/O map automatically
   1. Or at least provides Data or hooks into Data sources to generate the I/O map easily
4. Automated, self-reporting ongoing Assessment
   1. Capacity, Utilization, Trends
   2. Configurations
   3. ROI by Content
   4. TCO by Line of Business (LOB) supported
5. Storage announces itself to the network and auto-negotiates the SLA
   1. New twist - the Storage must report the Information "Content" to auto-negotiate the SLA
6. Enters its Configuration information into the Electronic Inventory
7. Self-reporting over its IT life
8. Works with major Manageware tools

Strategy

1. Where are we trying to go?
2. How did we get where we are?
3. Do we have a "Clear line of sight" from:
   1. IT Portfolio Management to the Line of Business (LOB) to the Company Portfolio Managment?
4. Do we know how we make money?
5. Do we know which of our stored Information will put us out of business, if we lose it?
6. Do we know which of our stored Information generates 80% of our gross revenue?
7. The Unit of Technology supports the Line of Business (LOB)
   1. Is this LOB a:
      1. Performance oriented LOB?
         1. Uses OLTP mostly
      2. Bandwidth oriented LOB?
         1. Uses OLAP and OLCP with some OLTP
8. Meets the IT Portfolio Management "Lower Metrics" requirements of:
   1. Configuration
   2. Replication - two worlds here. OLTP and OLAP and/or OLCP
      1. Migration is mass Replication
   3. Re-Configuration
9. Meets the IT Portfolio Management TCO, ROI requirements
10. Meets the Managed Unit of Information SLA/SLM requirements
11. Meets the Managed Unit of Technology SLA/SLM requirements

Design

1. High bandwidth, both internal and external
2. Enterprise scalable without box swap
3. PnP upgrades - no cold boot required for major upgrades
4. Scales cost-effectively either vertically or horizontally
5. Vendor defined product life
6. Built in reporting for both TCO and ROI
   1. SRM+ capability
7. Has the correct number of "9's" for Information High Availability (IHA)

Implement

1. Hardware PnP (Plug-n-Play)
2. Autoconfiguration - just plug it into the power and network
3. Auto determines striping, RAID level based on Application requests in cache
4. Dynamic configuration/re-configuration as Application needs change

Manage

1. Content aware and centric
2. Pipelined SFO (Search, Find and Obtain) by Content
3. "Self-Managing" as far as possible
4. Dynamic, auto-assessment of Configuration and Content
5. Robust Manageware that automates really important but resource consuming processes

If wishes were horses...