What is Storage Resource Monitoring?
Storage Resource Monitoring (SRM) involves tracking the performance and capacity of your storage arrays to identify any storage-related issues slowing down your system. SRM is a compatible and collaborative process that seamlessly integrates with multiple devices and vendors, providing real-time, comprehensive visibility into every layer of the storage infrastructure.
Different Types of Data Storage
As an IT professional, it is important to understand the specific storage requirements for different data use cases, including websites, files, mobile applications, databases, or backups. Usually, a combination of two or more types of storage is used to meet the diverse data storage needs effectively.
Some of the most common types of data storage are:
1. Direct Attached Storage (DAS) Resource
DAS resources include a hard drive in your laptop and a thumb drive attached to your computer.
While this is one of the most common forms of storage due to its accessibility and affordability, it is not convenient for businesses. Sharing the data stored on DAS resources will become challenging, as you will be required to carry it around, send emails, or upload it to the cloud.
2. Network Attached Storage (NAS) Resource
It is best for collaborative work as it offers centralized file control. To use this storage resource, internet or LAN connectivity is required. This will enable you to connect to the network and access multiple hard drives configured in a RAID configuration attached to the NAS. RAID comprises independent hard drives organized to store replicated data.
Further, to ensure that your data is always safe, you can choose to fully or partially replicate the data across all hard disks. Therefore, even if one of the disks crashes, your data is safe on the other disk.
However, you may face scalability limitations due to increased activity levels, resulting in performance slowdown and high latency.
3. Storage Area Network (SAN)
In the SAN, all server units are connected to Logical Disk Units (LUNs). It addresses the drawbacks of NAS by using a high-speed network with block-level access.
LUNs leverage the shared storage pool to allocate blocks and present them to the server as logical disks. The server partitions and formats these blocks to store data on the LUN, mirroring the procedure of local disk storage.
Besides, SANs specialize in eliminating single points of failure. Their resilience and high availability of storage resources ensure that they easily survive a multi-component or device failure. They enhance storage usage and application performance by providing tiered storage options and streamlining storage resource management.
4. Object Storage Resource
Instead of files or blocks, this storage type works with unstructured data objects, which comprise three parts: ID, metadata, and details like permissions, date of creation, owner, etc.
Considering its compatibility with the cloud, it addresses the issue of scalability while providing better data recovery and faster data retrieval. Further, compared to other storage types, it is cost-effective.
However, it works best with static data and is not convenient to use with traditional databases.
Need for Storage Resource Monitoring
Given the widespread adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and virtualization, and the strategic role of storage in organizational IT strategy, it is important to implement a centralized storage resource monitoring system because:
Optimizes Capacity Planning: Organizations tend to use multiple storage vendors to meet their needs. This leads to administrative challenges and the absence of comprehensive visibility across the storage devices. With a storage resource monitoring system in place, you will be able to combine data from multiple sources and get comprehensive insights.
Improves Uptime Levels: A comprehensive storage resource management system streamlines monitoring through a unified data storage interface. This enables the delivery of actionable insights, facilitating swift and accurate resolution of data storage performance issues.