Xiotech Expands ICON Manager for its Storage Systems

Xiotech Corporation announced plans at Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2008 to support Linux and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environments within its award-winning ICON Manager user interface, expanding the integrated and automated storage provisioning and management it already provides.

Currently, storage provisioning and management are typically ‘siloed’ in that IT managers must use multiple management consoles to configure storage — first on the storage array, and then on the physical and virtual servers. Each step adds time and the risk of human error. ICON Manager’s integrated and automated storage management enables users to provision and manage storage from a single console and gain a global view of storage throughout their IT environments.

ICON Manager, which currently provides these advanced capabilities for Windows and VMware environments, now adds support for Linux in the fourth quarter of 2008 and will support Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V by early 2009. ICON Manager also supports simplified storage provisioning and management for other operating systems, including UNIX, Mac OS and Novell NetWare.

"Our customers have saved significant money, time and stress by simplifying how they monitor, provision and manage their storage through ICON Manager," said Xiotech Director of Product Management Eric Lomascolo. "Storage management is more application-driven than storage-driven, and the human error found in complex management procedures is essentially eliminated, because of the automation and control ICON Manager delivers. With support for additional operating systems, our users will now be able to realize even more functionality and savings across their entire IT ecosystems."

ICON Manager is designed for users of Xiotech’s Emprise 7000 and Magnitude 3D 4000 and Magnitude 3D 3000 storage systems. Based on the Web Services open architecture and utilizing Microsoft Management Console plug-ins, ICON Manager provides an unprecedented level of integration, automating storage management processes across the array and server environments. Wizards guide users through common tasks, speeding administration, reducing the possibility for errors and empowering users to realize the full value of their investment. Additionally, ICON Manager provides a global view of storage across the array, physical server and virtual machine layers, which helps avoid the inefficiencies of dark storage, where allocated but unused storage is difficult to locate and identify.

"It is good to see Xiotech extending its existing capabilities with ICON Manager into more environments," said Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Mark Peters. "With increasing system complexity as the norm in most data centers — especially as virtualized server environments grow — the capability that Xiotech offers for overall centralized storage monitoring and management is a boon. It’s not just centralized and functional, but — at least as important — it’s also easy to learn, navigate and use."