Muell sees SMI-S playing an increasing role in alleviating the hassles involved with resource mapping. According to him, much of what Verizon Business is doing is identical or very similar to other applications he has seen, and the SMI-S model is discernible across a number of those applications.

"In terms of training people on management," he says, "you don't have to focus on an employee having specific application experience in the storage world so much as understanding the SMI model, and that gains him access to any number of applications."

At Muell and Wilson's hosting unit of Verizon Business, resource mapping is a necessity that is supported by technical and business managers up to the director and vice president levels.

Host agents hamper progress

Laura Deboise, research director for storage software at IDC, has studied the major players in the SRM market and found them lacking. "Regarding the mapping of applications back to storage, the allocation of SRM applications has gone to a certain point," she notes. "As far as being able to discover, monitor and report on databases like Exchange, Oracle and others, SRM as a market just has not taken off."