EMC cans Atmos cloud service

EMC has canned Atmos Online cloud storage service, just 14 months after introducing it, reports The Register.

The storage giant explains that going forward; EMC will no longer offer paid subscription or support for Atmos Online services.

It's speculated that the demise of the service is related to the high running costs, which have outweighed the revenue generated from customers. Channel conflict is also blamed because EMC's Atmos partners were unhappy that EMC was competing with them.

Research firm IDC predicts in its annual Digital Universe report that stored data is expected to balloon 44-fold in the next 10 years, states PC World.

The current rate of data growth is pegged at 0.8 zettabytes (800 billion gigabytes) in 2009. This is prompting CIOs and IT managers to deploy technology solutions that answer the need to contain and manage data, while trying to curb expenditures.

"As customers become more interactive, companies need to have access to information they might have gathered from previous transactions," says Mohammad Saif, deputy director for consulting, ICT practice, Frost & Sullivan South Asia and Middle East. "At many places, digitisation of records is also creating a big space for storage consumption.”

Hitachi Data Systems is updating its Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 line to reduce data centre costs through consolidation, says Newsfactor.com.

The company explains that the new features include SAS discs for high-density trays and an expanded capacity for rack mounting, enabling what the company calls "extremely large capacities" with up to a full petabyte on a single floor tile.

Mike Walkey, senior VP of Hitachi's Global Channels and Solutions, says: "This solution gives our partners the ability to achieve energy efficiency without compromising the reliability, availability or security of their customers' IT infrastructure."