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Introducing an application into a data center involves complex interrelated decision-making for the placement of data (where to store it) and resiliency in the event of a disaster (how to protect it). Automated planners can assist administrators in making intelligent placement and resiliency decisions when provisioning for both new and existing applications. Such planners take advantage of recent improvements in storage resource management and provide guided recommendations based on monitored performance data and storage models. For example, the IBM Provisioning Planner provides intelligent decision-making for the steps involved in allocating and assigning storage for workloads. It involves planning for the number, size, and location of volumes on the basis of workload performance requirements and hierarchical constraints, planning for the appropriate number of paths, and enabling access to volumes …