It's no secret storage resource management (SRM) is a large category of disparate products covering most everything from very specialized storage tools to groupings of tools that manage and report on the many different parts of the storage environment. Seven years ago, SRM was focused mainly on provisioning and allocating storage. Many of the products at the time were derived from the numerous storage service providers turned software providers. The tools were somewhat primitive and didn't live up to their hype. But despite the rocky start, SRM companies and their offerings continue to grow.