STIME-Les Mousquetaires Chooses SAN Sentinel

SAN Sentinel SAS, publisher of storage infrastructure analysis and optimisation software for EMC, NetApp, IBM, HP and HDS arrays in cloud/SaaS mode announced that STIME, the IT subsidiary of Les Mousquetaires founded in 1974 and with to this day 750 collaborators, has chosen to use its Sentinel Navigator service software.

Installed within a few minutes on a virtual server, in a private cloud, Navigator displays on a common graphic interface the information stemming from several dozens of EMC (VMAX, VNX and CX4), NetApp storage arrays, vCenters and Brocade switches. All the collected information, available in one unique control point provides a complete inventory of storage and servers by offering graphic views adapted to the different types of users who request them. All without installing agents.

The SAN Sentinel object-based storage technology enables to collect the objects composing the storage infrastructure without any installation required. Each collected object is normalized to allow an application or an end user to retrieve it at a unique point without needing to know the physical location of the data. It is essential to automate and rationalise storage in cloud computing environments. By applying this technology to SRM applications, SAN Sentinel has developed Navigator, a SaaS/cloud ‘Storage Management in a Cloud’ solution capable of analysing storage environments and of providing information on a dashboard accessible through a graphic interface from anywhere.

By implementing this service, STIME improves the reliability of its decisions by defining appropriate procedures that enable the follow-up of storage evolution, by reducing risks and controlling costs. To analyse its infrastructure, STIME uses reliable information that’s updated daily and has removed most of the scripts developed internally. It now enjoys externalized support which allows it to guarantee the evolution of its infrastructure according to additions or modifications but also to ask for new features, reports or views, all without additional costs.

Navigator allows STIME to access graphically predefined views including all the technical information necessary for storage engineers, but also a ‘Manager’ dashboard which helps the infrastructure managers see the evolution of storage without necessarily knowing all the details of the existing environment. They can thus save volume by identifying which servers/applications contribute the most to this increase and plan capacity upgrades by managing growth to anticipate consumptions and thus act proactively rather than reactively.

“Having constant visibility on the evolution of their storage allows STIME to control the cost of their infrastructure and optimise the resources necessary for its exploitation. STIME is a precursor by applying now the recommendations of Gartner or IDC which, to face storage increase, encourage companies to master their infrastructure by knowing and controlling the exploited resources.” says Jeronimo Munoz COO, SAN Sentinel.

The STIME storage administrators lessen the risks of incidents by following the evolution of thin provisioning or of allocated quotas, by giving a view of the inventory and time lines, by finding free space, by detecting within a few seconds which servers consume their allocated capacity less efficiently and by reducing the time necessary for administration, all thanks to a set of tools at their disposal.

The finance managers can plan the future purchase of new capacities by having at their disposal reliable and precise information concerning the timeline of previous months or years, which they can edit on XL, TXT or CSV formats and integrate in their own formulas.

“We have chosen SAN Sentinel to control our storage increase at lower cost. Using it allows us to optimise our internal resources, used until now to obtain array/switch information by developing ‘home-made’ scripts, and then transferring manually the results to combine them thanks to spread sheets, which is much more costly and imprecise,” says Jean-Marie Alcaras, deputy director, STIME.