Jed Dobson, systems architect at Hanover, N.H.-based Dartmouth College, which uses Sun storage systems, suggested that the integration of storage and network management products may be just a ploy by vendors to maintain control of data centers. "Maybe they just don't want to give up control of the management platform," Dobson said.

"There's two ends that matter, and that's the user and the data," said Steve Duplessie, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Inc. in Milford, Mass. "Data sits on storage and traverses networks to get to a user, where it becomes useful. Having those things integrated makes intuitive sense, whether you pick Smarts or OpenView or Sun."

Duplessie acknowledged that users looking at the trend from a day-to-day tactical perspective might be less interested in it. "If something works," he said, "why on earth would you fix it?"