Exploring Storage Management Efficiencies and Provisioning - Understanding IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center and IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center with Advanced Provisioning

Chapter 5. Automation with IBM storage products 123

5.5.7 Optimization

Optimization helps ensure the most productive utilization of IT resources:

򐂰 It increases storage resource utilization by enabling storage capacity

management

򐂰 It increases IT resource utilization by creating resilient workload management

infrastructures

򐂰 It increases efficiency and responsiveness of batch operations by centralizing

control of interoperating jobs

This is where IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center fits into the model. The IBM

TotalStorage Productivity Center is an open storage infrastructure management

solution designed to help reduce the effort of managing complex storage

infrastructures, to help improve storage capacity utilization, and to help improve

administrative efficiency. It is designed to enable an agile storage infrastructure

that can respond to on demand storage needs.

We also offer IBM® content management, which helps manage, share, integrate

and deliver critical business information on demand. IBM software and solutions

support challenging information types — images, documents, reports, e-mail,

Web content, e-records, multimedia, computer report output and more. The

integrated, comprehensive content management portfolio assists organizations

that must improve productivity, enhance responsiveness, and meet the demands

of regulatory compliance.

5.6 Business value model of automation

Operating in the on demand world requires that your IT infrastructure be

responsive, flexible, resilient, and efficient. With increased demand and shrinking

budgets, automating your operating environment becomes essential for survival

and success. On demand automation enables your operational environment to

sense changes in requirements for IT resources and dynamically execute

management actions based on business policies and service levels.

In an on demand world, automation means managing and optimizing operational

processes and IT services based on business policies by automatically sensing

and responding to changes. On demand automation facilitates your journey

toward becoming an on demand business by transforming the way you manage

IT resources. It helps you create a highly secure, available, and resilient

infrastructure that meets your increasing service-level requirements and

changing business priorities.

124 Exploring Storage Management Efficiencies and Provisioning

IBM provides on demand automation solutions that deliver three top benefits to

help you make IT a valuable driver of business growth:

򐂰 They reduce costs and increase productivity.

򐂰 They improve service levels (QoS).

򐂰 They increase business flexibility to support change and innovation.

Tight relationships exist between these areas of the business; improvements in

one area affect the others (see Figure 5-4). Each build upon the other to enable

the business to first survive and then excel in the marketplace. IBM is committed

to providing the tools and expertise required so that businesses can optimize IT

resources and align them with business priorities to lower costs and enhance

service levels.

Figure 5-4 Value through automation

Improve Service Levels (QoS))

Demonstrate and Measure IT Value to the Business

SENSE

Inventory

Monitoring

Remote Management

Access Management

Directory Integration

Backup/Restore

Virtualization

Integrated

Data Model

CORRELATE

Event Management

System Automation

Workload Scheduling

Capacity Planning

Provisioning

Business Service

Management

CHANGE

Provisioning

Distribution

Identify Management

Information Integration

Business Integration

GOVERN

Intelligent

Orchestration

Web Infrastructure

Orchestration

Reduce Cost and

Increase Productivity

Increase Business Flexibility to

Support Change & Innovation

Improving IT Operations

Improving Business Flexibility

Chapter 5. Automation with IBM storage products 125

On demand automation helps manage your increasingly complex IT environment

in real-time by making sure that your IT resources are used in the most efficient

way and that problems are solved quickly. IBM on demand automation solutions

help you increase overall utilization of your IT resources (people, applications,

middleware and hardware) and secure assets needed to accomplish your

business objectives. This ultimately reduces operational costs and improves

productivity.

Finally, it should be said that automating your on demand operating environment

ought to be done in a deliberate and gradual way. The goal is to evolve your

operating environment to handle the evolutionary nature of your business.

Moving toward an on demand business should be seen as evolution, not

revolution.

126 Exploring Storage Management Efficiencies and Provisioning