InformationWeek

usinesses spend a lot of money on data storage, with good reason--with too little storage, a company's IT systems can suffer major problems. But too much storage is a waste of money. Storage-resource-management software can help a company make the most efficient use of the storage it has and identify when additional storage is needed.

Trilogy Software Inc., a 10-year-old private company, this week will change its name to TeraCloud Corp. and introduce SpaceFinder 4.0, the latest version of its storage-management software. SpaceFinder helps IT managers better use available storage and can help to cut outlays for additional storage. One of the main features of the new software lets IT managers track Linux files running on the mainframe and ensures that Linux applications get the proper amount of storage resources. The price for SpaceFinder 4.0 ranges from $80,000 to $120,000.

First Data Corp. isn't ready for Linux on the mainframe yet, says Steve Owings, a senior storage administrator at the credit-and debit-card transaction-processing company in Hagerstown, Md. But First Data does use an earlier version of SpaceFinder to manage storage resources for 70 terabytes of mainframe data and another 70 terabytes of data used by Unix and Windows NT/2000 servers. "A lot of that Unix storage is really disorganized," Owings says. "SpaceFinder can help us."

The software has helped First Data identify waste, defer storage purchases, and support service-level agreements by reallocating storage resources to meet spikes in data-access demand that happen on a weekly and monthly basis, Owings says.

Trilogy, soon to be TeraCloud, used to compete against a number of small companies, most of which have been acquired by large, formidable vendors, such as BMC Software, Computer Associates, and Sun Microsystems. But Aberdeen Group analyst David Hill says TeraCloud offers a robust storage-management product: "They understand what it takes to make it work."