MonoSphere Storage Horizon® 3.4 provides a comprehensive solution delivering exceptional visibility into Network Appliance™ (NetApp®) filers. It is particularly suited for managing the capacity of large environments consisting of many filers.  New in this version of Storage Horizon is support for managing the capacity of:

• Qtrees, NetApp's commonly used storage quota system
• FlexVols™, which provide the basis for NetApp's storage virtualization technology enabling capabilities such as thin provisioning, and FlexClones®. 
• NetApp's Snapshot technology, which provides point-in-time copies of file systems.

MonoSphere Storage Horizon 3.4, a comprehensive solution delivering storage capacity management capabilities to Network Appliance™ (NetApp®) storage environments.  Ideal for managing large storage environments, this enterprise-class software solution provides Global 3000 companies with a unified view of current and projected storage capacity usage, giving companies the insight to develop effective storage capacity plans and maximize utilization of existing and future storage assets.

For Qtrees, the Storage Horizon software provides the necessary analysis to help users quickly understand important issues such as when Qtree usage is over allocated, if the sum of all Qtree allocations is greater than the size of the volume, which Qtrees are forecasted to exceed critical utilization thresholds, and which Qtrees are over-provisioned.

New support for FlexVols provide the necessary analysis to quickly understand important issues such as which aggregates are running out of available space for non-space guaranteed storage, which are forecasted to exceed critical utilization thresholds, the size, usage and growth of both space and non-space guaranteed FlexVols; which volumes can accommodate additional Qtrees, and the degree to which an aggregate is over-provisioned.

For Snapshots, the Storage Horizon software provides the necessary analysis which allows users to quickly understand important issues such as if snapshot reserve is effectively sized, when the snapshot usage is greater than snapshot reserve, or when snapshot reserves are projected to run out.

As with previous versions, Storage Horizon 3.4 does not require installation of software agents on application servers, so the system deploys in hours and collects storage usage data immediately.

See for yourself how Storage Horizon 3.4 can lower your storage CapEx and ease the burden of managing your rapidly growing storage infrastructure by viewing the:

Storage Horizon on-line demo:
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Storage Horizon 3-minute movie:
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Storage Horizon product white paper:
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A recent survey conducted by MonoSphere reveals that 75 percent of 249 storage professionals cited increased utilization of storage hardware as the top expected benefit of thin provisioning.  However, 77 percent indicated that the increased risk of running out of storage and added management complexity are major obstacles hampering the implementation or expanded deployment of this promising technology.

Thin provisioning creates storage pools which can be shared by multiple consumers of storage.  It also makes it appear to each consumer of storage that there are significantly more storage resources available than are actually present.  The risk is that one or more storage consumers can fill up the actual storage, using up the storage pool for all, resulting in disastrous situations where multiple applications and end users are unable to save data.  Thin provisioning also adds another layer of complexity that needs to be managed.  Implementations become especially complex when managing storage systems that support both thin provisioning (non space-guaranteed) and traditional provisioning (space-guaranteed) at the same time, a commonly desired configuration.

Other survey findings include:

• Top benefits for implementing thin provisioning are increased utilization of storage hardware (75 percent) and easier provisioning with less disruption (49 percent).
• Top drawbacks for implementing thin provisioning are increased risk of running out of storage (44 percent), added complexity to the storage environment (43 percent), and lack of thin provisioning management tools (42 percent).

The July 2007 survey represented a total of 249 respondents.  Respondents were senior storage professionals in mid to large sized organizations.

To quickly and effectively raise utilization in NetApp environments, a best practice is to work from the bottom up.  Follow the below guidelines to save millions in capital, energy, and datacenter real estate spending and be the next hero in your company.

• Identify which filer volume snapshot reserves are much greater than snapshot usage.  Adjust reserves sizes accordingly.
• Forecast the usage for all filer volumes 6 months in the future.  Identify those filer volumes that are forecasted to stay below a user determined low threshold during the 6 month duration.  If the amount of storage that can be reclaimed is large enough, reclaim the storage from those over-provisioned volumes.
• Forecast the usage for all filer aggregates 6 months in the future.  Identify those aggregates that are forecasted to stay below a user determined low threshold during the 6 month duration.  If the amount of storage that can be reclaimed is large enough, reclaim the storage from those over-provisioned aggregates.
• Identify the storage systems with low utilization, i.e. usage divided by total storage.  Under-utilized storage systems can be consolidated to save on maintenance, energy costs (power and cooling), and datacenter real estate space.  If consolidation is not a good option, keep the additional storage in reserve and re-allocate that storage to address future needs as opposed to purchasing more storage.
• Identify filer volumes that have limited, if any, usage growth. These are good candidates for archiving or migrating to lower cost storage.