EMC Corporation, the world leader in information storage and management, today announced that the University of Texas at El Paso and Overstock.com were honoured as winners of Storage Networking World`s "Best Practices in Storage" Awards Programme for its exemplary use of EMC technology and its pursuit of information lifecycle management (ILM).
These prestigious awards are given to organisations that have demonstrated excellence in creating strategic business value through the innovative use of storage technologies. Winners were recognised during a special awards ceremony at Storage Networking World, a conference co-owned and co-produced by IDG`s Computerworld and the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).
Howard Elias, EMC`s Executive Vice-President, Corporate Marketing and Office of Technology, said: "Overstock.com and the University of Texas at El Paso are inspiring examples of how to achieve outstanding business value, improve utilisation of IT resources and deliver information and services reliably and securely. We`re pleased our solutions contributed to their successful ILM strategies and congratulate them on winning the `Best Practices in Storage` award."
A wide range of IT end-user companies and organisations responded to an initial "call for nominations", which was originally announced to multiple industry audiences, including Computerworld subscribers responsible for storage solutions. Finalists were evaluated by a panel of judges based on case study submissions that profiled the company, its IT department and storage challenges, as well as application deployment details, summaries of the key technology used and measurable solution outcomes.
The University of Texas at El Paso was a winner in the award`s Data Lifecycle Management category for its use of tiered EMC storage to consolidate student and faculty information systems for improved data availability, IT productivity and cost control. The university relies on an EMC storage area network (SAN) integrated with an EMC network attached storage (NAS) gateway to manage 27 000 Microsoft Exchange mailboxes and images of student records. EMC software allows the university to easily and centrally oversee its tiered storage environments, helping to increase information uptime from 90% to 99%. More efficient use of storage has also consolidated the number of servers by 10%, leading to significant cost savings. Most importantly, students and faculty can now access papers, records and other information around the clock reliably and securely.
Overstock.com, a top-10 Internet retailer and auction Web site, was a winner in the award`s Innovation and Promise category for its advanced grid-computing infrastructure, anchored by a high-performance EMC storage area network (SAN) and managed by EMC software. Combining automatic load balancing, I/O path failover and real-time data replication, the solution ensures rapid Web site response times for customers and no loss of business in case of disaster. The new infrastructure reduced web page load times by nearly 30%, providing customers with faster response times and an all-around better shopping experience. For Overstock.com, this translated into increased sales. The EMC environment also reduced the time for data warehouse refreshes by 85% - from 13 hours to just two hours, dramatically increasing the time employees have for reporting and analysis.
"Each year, I continue to be impressed with the storage initiatives that are outlined in the case studies submitted for the Best Practices in Storage awards programme. It is truly an achievement for all who work in the industry to see how storage has been elevated to a business-critical application in a few short years," said Ron Milton, executive vice-president for Computerworld. "The Spring 2005 awards demonstrate how powerful storage has become within the business world and how making smart decisions about topics such as industry compliance and data recovery can directly impact a corporation`s bottom line."
The complete list of "Best Practices in Storage" Awards Programme winners can be found online at www.snwusa.com.
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EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world leader in products, services and solutions for information storage and management that help organisations extract the maximum value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle. Information about EMC`s products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.
Computerworld
Computerworld, the "Voice of IT Management", is the most trusted source for the critical information needs of senior IT management. Computerworld`s integrated offerings form the US-based hub of the world`s largest (58-edition) global IT media network through its weekly publication, Computerworld.com Web site, focused conference series and custom research. In the past five years alone, Computerworld has won more than 100 print and online awards for editorial and design excellence, surpassing its direct competition by an order of magnitude. Recognition includes the 2004 Magazine of the Year Award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors and a Jesse H Neal Award for "Best News Coverage".
In print since 1967, Computerworld is the source for information technology management, with a guaranteed rate base of 180 050, a total print audience of 1 138 000 (IntelliQuest CIMS 2004 Business Influencer Study) and an online audience of over 1.5 million unique monthly visitors (DoubleClick).
Computerworld is a business unit of International Data Group (IDG), the world`s leading technology media, research and events company. A privately held company, IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers, including Bio-IT World, CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld, Network World and PC World. The company features the largest network of technology-specific Web sites, with more than 400 around the world. IDG is also a leading producer of more than 170 computer-related events worldwide, including LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, Macworld Conference & Expo, DEMO and IDC Directions. IDC provides global market research and advice through offices in 50 countries. Company information is available at www.idg.com.
SNIA
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a not-for-profit organisation made up of more than 300 companies and individuals spanning virtually the entire storage industry. SNIA members share a common goal: to set the pace of the industry by advancing the adoption of storage networks as complete and trusted solutions. To this end, the SNIA is uniquely committed to delivering standards, education and services that will propel open storage networking solutions into the broader market. For further information, visit www.snia.org.
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