Manual processes, homegrown storage management practices, and passive Storage Resource Management (SRM) can't keep up with explosive storage growth, limited IT staff, and the increasing importance of corporate data for regulatory and business purposes. A new model called Active Storage Management (ASM) is required to overcome these weaknesses and address new requirements. ASM is the next generation of SRM. It matches storage policies to business processes through automation of key storage management tasks. ASM helps companies ensure that mission-critical data can be proactively managed during periods of rapid growth, and helps make data-intensive storage consolidations and disaster recovery planning projects as efficient and cost-effective as possible. This white paper outlines the evolution from passive storage management to ASM, and highlights the benefits of ASM for business and IT management.