Patent ID: 8510429

Claim:
A data storage infrastructure for a communication network that produces network data, the data storage infrastructure comprising: a plurality of data storage systems configured to store the network data; and a storage management system configured to identify characteristics and groups of characteristics for each of the data storage systems and to display the characteristics and the groups of characteristics on a per data storage system basis for each of the data storage systems, wherein each of the groups of characteristics comprises a subset of the characteristics and the characteristics indicate a number of servers connected to each of the data storage systems, a number of connections between the servers and each of the data storage systems, an operating system for each of the data storage systems, and an acquisition cost for each of the data storage systems; and wherein the storage management system is further configured to determine and display a total cost for each of the data storage systems and a percentage of the total cost attributed to each of the groups of characteristics for each of the data storage systems; and wherein to identify the characteristics for each of the data storage systems the plurality of data storage systems report characteristics to the storage management system; and wherein the servers comprise small servers, medium servers, and large servers, the small servers comprising a single Central Processing Unit (CPU), the medium servers comprising two or three CPUs, and the large servers comprising four or more CPUs, and the characteristics indicate a percentage of the data storage infrastructure comprised of the small servers, a percentage of the data storage infrastructure comprised of the medium servers, and a percentage of the data storage infrastructure comprised of the large servers.