Overview
SunGard undertakes 24/7 round the clock management of EMC, HP, IBM and Sun StorageTek’s storage arrays hosted within its data centres, providing a Dedicated Managed Storage service to customers wanting to outsource the storage component of their IT environment.
The service comprises administering, monitoring, configuring, maintaining, and supporting of Direct Attached Storage (DAS), Storage Area Network (SAN) and any associated Cisco storage network fabric.
Hardware components are dedicated to each customer, ensuring each customer’s data is secure and limited to the array being managed.
When subscribed alongside Managed OS, Dedicated Managed Storage provides for managing a customer’s entire host and storage estate. When subscribed without Managed OS, SunGard’s demarcation point is at the storage network switching level.
A number of mainstream vendors are supported including;
- IBM DS and SVC
- HP EVA & MSA
- EMC Clarion CX & DMX
- Dell CX
- Sun StorageTek 2, 3 & 6xxx range
Each storage platform is supported by the relevant vendor management software.
Features
- Administering of devices including;
- Installing firmware and vendor tools updates
- Maintaining each device to the then latest level of firmware and utilities that each customer is licensed to
- Connecting and configuring devices including;
- Initial connectivity of fabric, storage devices and servers (if OS management is subscribed to)
- Problem resolution for on-going connectivity between fabric and device
- Volume Management
- Configuring of initial LUNs
- Administering volumes to adhere to vendor best practice
- Reporting
- Availability of volumes and consumption
- Availability of devices – up / down status
- Deployment & On-going Support
- Install and support path management software
- Install and support of vendor storage management software
- Install of device driver software
- Undertaking of SAN tasks
- Mapping of LUN to host server
- Alterations and re-mapping
- Stringent Change Management process
- Customers rely on SunGard’s Change Control process to ensure configurations are fully documented prior to going live
Benefits
Dedicated Managed Storage provides 24/7 round the clock outsourcing of storage devices. As such, customers may rest assured that their key systems are being monitored and tracked with engineers located nearby to rectify any support issues. This is often a cost effective outsource solution for most customers, as it allows sharing of SunGard’s engineering personnel across multiple customers. Dedicated Managed Storage is ideal for organisations that prefer to focus on other parts of their business.
Customers are able to be delivered a true end-to-end solution, from the array, host and storage fabric, meaning that SunGard manages an entire IT environment rather than partial, again releasing and enabling customers to focus on their key business areas.
Customers are able to plan better; taking advantage of SunGard’s pre-configured reports when planning for performance, utilisation efficiency or growth.
Options
Customers may subscribe to a reduced level of management - management of array and fabric only.
Service requirements
Customers must subscribe to OS Management to benefit from installation of HBA firmware and software.
Customers must be licensed for Maintenance Aids – any software, hardware, firmware or tools required on the managed storage platform for continuous administration of the storage array and fabric being managed by SunGard.
SunGard may install its monitoring agent onto the managed storage to ensure maximum visibility of the customer’s storage performance and health.
The storage environment being managed by SunGard must be maintained and supported under the vendor’s premium support agreement. SunGard will abide back-to-back by the vendor’s service levels for the purpose of maintenance and updates.
The customer acknowledges that from time to time it may be necessary to provide access to the storage system to the vendor and maintenance provider for the purpose of maintaining and updating the storage environment. SunGard seeks advanced authorisation for this.