Cost and power efficient storage area network provisioning

A system for efficiently provisioning a storage area network (SAN), comprising:

• a storage management module operational in the SAN, wherein the storage management module is adapted for:
• providing SAN information to an engine for optimization, wherein the SAN information includes at least one of SAN configuration information, SAN usage information, at least one cost profile, and at least one chargeback model,
• based on the SAN information, filtering those of an available plurality of storage resources not meeting at least one storage criterion,
• ranking the filtered storage resources on a cost basis,
• constructing a resource configuration graph based on the ranked storage resources,
• traversing the resource configuration graph to obtain a plurality of possible SAN configuration plans, and
• applying at least one power profile to the plurality of possible SAN configuration plans to rank the plurality of possible SAN configuration plans by energy consumption.

A computer program product for efficiently provisioning a storage area network (SAN) using a processor device, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code portions stored therein, the computer-readable program code portions comprising:

• a first executable portion for providing SAN information to an engine for optimization, wherein the SAN information includes at least one of SAN configuration information, SAN usage information, at least one cost profile, and at least one chargeback model;
• a second executable portion for, based on the SAN information, filtering those of an available plurality of storage resources not meeting at least one storage criterion;
• a third executable portion for ranking the filtered storage resources on a cost basis;
• a fourth executable portion for constructing a resource configuration graph based on the ranked storage resources;
• a fifth executable portion for traversing the resource configuration graph to obtain a plurality of possible SAN configuration plans;
• and
• a sixth executable portion for applying at least one power profile to the plurality of possible SAN configuration plans to rank the plurality of possible SAN configuration plans by energy consumption.