GlassHouse CTO, Jim Damoulakis, writes "Why you should create a services approach to storage"

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Pick up any publication dealing with application development, and it's virtually impossible to avoid coming across the term SOA, or service-oriented architecture. The concept is rather simple -- provide a set of common services through well-defined, extensible interfaces that can be accessed and shared by a variety of applications. This improves efficiency, cuts application development time and enables enhancements through the replacement or introduction of new services.

Recently, research firms such as IDC have begun applying a similar term, service-oriented infrastructure (SOI), as an analogue to SOA. Associated closely with virtualization, SOI presents a vision of common IT infrastructure elements -- CPU, network and storage -- presented as services to applications.

Within the storage realm, as organizations have been grappling with improving service-delivery capabilities while under pressure to drive down costs, many are turning to a services approach to storage. The tiered-storage concept can be viewed as a somewhat half-hearted attempt at such an approach. It addresses some of the underlying technical issues but lacks the necessary strategic and operational framework surrounding it to fully achieve the desired goals.

The additional components needed to complete the SOI framework include the folowing:

• A catalog of service offerings defined based on business requirements rather than technical attribute
• Committed service levels that are agreed upon with stakeholders
• Well-understood, repeatable processes to deliver services
• An ability to gather and report metrics that demonstrate service-level compliance, measure most factors and drive operational efficiency

The supply chain has been a popular topic of business discussion for some time. Within an IT organization, storage, along with other functions, is an IT supply chain component serving a variety of application customers. An SOI provides a solid architectural framework that supports this approach by ensuring the appropriate resources are allocated in the right quantity, at the right place, at the right time.

Damoulakis is chief technology officer of GlassHouse Technologies Inc., a leading provider of independent storage services. He can be reached at jimd@glasshouse.com.