InformationWeek

May 17, 1999

EMC To Make Storage Easier, Cheaper

Lower-priced system offers improved disaster tolerance, simpler administration

By Martin J. Garvey

Related links:

Solid Showing For Storage

EMC Turns To The Web To Teach Leadership

Hardware Resource Center

MC Corp. this week will ship an upgraded storage appliance that's easier to administer and cheaper than the company's existing storage systems. Later this year, the enterprise storage market leader plans to deliver switch technology that will let its customers access EMC Symmetrix storage systems and other vendors' storage from one server.

EMC's Celerra File Server 2.0 is a new version of the company's network-attached storage system enhanced to interact with its Symmetrix enterprise storage system across long distances. Version 2.0 moves and stores Unix and Windows NT files simultaneously. It also includes high-end disaster-recovery capability, including Symmetrix Remote Data Facility, which lets customers maintain copies of data without shutting down a system. That software was previously available only on Symmetrix, which can cost $3 million and up.

Celerra 2.0's $307,000 price tag is a plus, says Brad Day, a senior analyst with Giga Information Group. "Now, many more organizations can have disaster tolerance between remote Celerra devices and the Symmetrix mother ship," he says.

By year's end, EMC plans to release a version of its Connectrix switch that will let a server interact with data stored on Symmetrix, HP, IBM, and Sun storage devices. "Any storage system compliant with Fibre Channel standards will be able to connect to our enterprise storage network through Connectrix," says Jim Rothnie, EMC's senior VP and chief marketing technical officer.

Besides taking advantage of Connectrix's interoperability, Bill Hansen, manager of system software support for Lutheran Brotherhood, a Minneapolis life insurance company, plans to connect an NT server to Symmetrix this week. The insurer will use Connectrix to boot, back up, and restore NT servers through Symmetrix. "When we had to restore the servers themselves," Hansen says, "we never successfully recovered a server within 24 hours."

Back to This Week's Issue

Send Us Your Feedback

Top of the Page