EMC extends breadth of EMC CLARiiON with new native iSCSI platforms

EMC Corporation today announced another major step to help customers reduce costs, consolidate their IT infrastructures and build a foundation for information lifecycle management (ILM) through storage networking.

EMC today introduced new versions of its industry-leading EMC CLARiiON networked storage systems with native iSCSI (Internet small computer system interface) support, including the new CLARiiON AX100i, CLARiiON CX300i and CLARiiON CX500i models.

With the addition of these new systems, EMC is delivering the broadest set of Fibre Channel and native iSCSI storage networking solutions in the industry, flexible enough in functionality and price to meet the needs of the world`s largest data centres down to small and medium businesses.

EMC`s new CLARiiON iSCSI systems are purpose-built to deliver leading price/performance that enables customers to deploy lower-cost storage area networks (SANs) by using their existing IP network infrastructures. EMC also supports the iSCSI standard on its Symmetrix DMX systems, Connectrix SAN switches and Celerra network-attached storage (NAS) and NetWin systems.

"iSCSI support for EMC CLARiiON not only demonstrates EMC`s commitment to this standard, it also offers value-driven customers a sound path to deploying an ILM strategy regardless of the size or type of environment," said David A Donatelli, EMC Executive Vice-President, Storage Platforms Operations. "The lower relative implementation cost of IP storage is an important factor for customers wanting to consolidate their IT infrastructures to more effectively manage their information throughout its lifecycle."

These products further reduce the cost of storage networking through the use of new, low-cost disk technology. The CLARiiON AX100i utilises inexpensive Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) disks, and the CLARiiON CX300i and CX500i systems let customers mix Fibre Channel with parallel and SATA disks to create tiered storage within a single system.

"The extensive family of EMC CLARiiON iSCSI networked storage systems will enable our resellers to offer customers a greater selection of leading price/performance SAN technologies," said Jeff Bawol, Senior Vice-President and General Manager of Avnet Partner Solutions Enterprise Software and Storage Business Unit, an EMC Velocity Channel Partner that has beta-tested CLARiiON iSCSI systems. "Using our Demo Advantage service, we`ve logged hundreds of hours of testing with the new line of EMC CLARiiON iSCSI solutions. I`m confident the new EMC systems will help our partners fulfil significant customer demand for economical mid-tier SAN and ILM solutions."

"ESG believes the EMC CLARiiON AX100i will bring iSCSI SANs into the mainstream market," said Tony Asaro, Senior Analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group. "Our research found that 42% of small and medium businesses are planning to implement iSCSI SANs by mid-2006. We believe that small and medium customers including schools, government agencies and large organisations with remote offices will be the sweet spot for iSCSI. These customers are reaching a point where consolidating server storage and centralising backup are a priority, and iSCSI makes it affordable for them to implement a SAN. EMC bringing its CLARiiON products into the game legitimises iSCSI as a viable option for many customers and potentially opens up whole new markets."

As an industry leader in mid-tier SAN storage, EMC CLARiiON product revenues grew 44% in 2004 as small and medium enterprises embraced CLARiiON`s unique blend of functionality and affordability. Offering the leading price point for fully functional redundant array of independent disks (RAID) storage from a major vendor, EMC CLARiiON AX100`s award-winning ease-of-use features and low cost were recognised several times in 2004 for innovation leadership, including by InfoWorld as its "Best SAN Product of the Year".

A comprehensive suite of iSCSI management software is available for the new storage platforms. For example, EMC offers the EMC Navisphere Management Suite and EMC SnapView software to support LUN masking, non-disruptive upgrades and online LUN expansion for the CLARiiON CX300i and CX500i. The CLARiiON AX100i is pre-packaged and fully equipped with all the functionality required for setup, management and data protection. All three new EMC CLARiiON models support attachment to servers running Microsoft Windows Server 2000 and 2003.

Starting at $5 995, EMC CLARiiON iSCSI prices are equivalent to EMC CLARiiON Fibre Channel offerings.

The EMC CLARiiON AX100i is available now and is sold through EMC`s worldwide Velocity Channel and distribution network and by Dell. The CLARiiON CX500i is also available now and is sold through direct and indirect sales channels. The CLARiiON CX300i is targeted for general availability in Q205 through direct and indirect channels.