EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC), the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today introduced several new features for its market leading EMC CLARiiON family of networked storage systems.
They include integrated advanced security, additional iSCSI capabilities and improved data availability features, as well as support for the newest generation of high-capacity disk drives.
Together, these enhancements will help customers more effectively store, manage and protect their information, while protecting their existing investment in CLARiiON and help extend EMC's leadership in the mid-range storage market.
The new capabilities are included in the latest version of the EMC CLARiiON FLARE storage operating environment, which is available as a free upgrade to CLARiiON CX3 system and previous generation CLARiiON CX300, CX500 and CX700 system customers under maintenance.
New security, compliance features
EMC has built in a comprehensive set of features that can help CLARiiON customers more effectively control access to their systems and better secure information. The new features include:
* Secure access to system - Using this feature, an administrator will have the ability to define a security administrator role. Security administrators will be authorised to add new users or arrays to the domain, but will not be able to monitor or configure the CLARiiON arrays.
* Secure infrastructure - With IP address filtering limits, access to a CLARiiON array will be controlled and confined to specific management stations. As an additional security feature, administrators can ensure that any access via the command line is encrypted and authenticated.
* Compliance and audit - This feature will allow administrators to document all system login attempts to ensure complete accountability of access to a specific CLARiiON system. Synchronisation between server and storage logs via support of the Internet Time Protocol will further ensure consistency and accuracy of security reporting.
New iSCSI capabilities
Dual-protocol EMC CLARiiON CX systems support both fibre channel and iSCSI connectivity. As the popularity of deploying CLARiiON in iSCSI storage networking environments continues to grow, the newest version of the FLARE storage operating environment includes new native iSCSI remote replication capabilities.
This allows customers to replicate data over distances more cost-effectively by using the built-in iSCSI ports on CLARiiON systems with EMC MirrorView and EMC SAN Copy software.
This new capability will reduce remote replication costs, making it ideal for first-time disaster recovery projects, as well as VMware environments where data from virtual servers has been consolidated and needs to be replicated to an off-site location.
New energy-efficient disk drive support, high availability capabilities
To help customers further reduce costs, the CLARiiON CX3 UltraScale series systems support the newest 750 GB SATA II disk drives, which can provide energy efficiency improvements of up to 33%.
EMC is also providing customers with a new protection option with the addition of RAID 6 support.
In addition, the latest version of FLARE includes support for the ALUA (asymmetric logical unit access) standard for advanced active/active failover functions. Combined with current proactive hot sparing capabilities, these new features further support the CLARiiON CX3 mid-range storage leading benchmark of "Five 9's" of availability - 99.999% uptime.
Calamos Investments is a diversified investment firm offering equity, fixed-income, convertible and alternative investment strategies, among others. The firm serves institutions and individuals via separately managed accounts and a family of open-end and closed-end funds, providing a risk-managed approach to capital appreciation and income-producing strategies.
Based in Naperville, Illinois, Calamos' headquarters is registered with the US Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Calamos uses EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 and EMC CLARiiON storage arrays, coupled with EMC software solutions, to provide highly available and flexible systems to its internal and external clients. Calamos recently completed a beta evaluation of the new FLARE operating environment with two EMC CLARiiON CX3-10 UltraScale systems.
Corey Owens, Calamos Vice-President of Network Operations, said: "In order to best serve our customers and associates, our information infrastructure must be continuously available. EMC helps us address this need by providing hardware and software that are designed to be flexible in our dynamic and fast-paced environment. The new FLARE operating environment for EMC CLARiiON has demonstrated several new features, such as access control and a protection option that will help us keep our data secure and available, while keeping power and cooling costs down. Additionally, the native IP replication feature will help Calamos augment its aggressive business continuity plan."
Mike Karp, senior storage analyst at Enterprises Management Associates, said: "Information security and protection are key issues for organisations of all sizes. By extending security and protection and by offering such services over both fibre channel and iSCSI connections, EMC makes it easier for both mid-tier and enterprise customers to protect their data while at the same time continue to get value from their investment in existing storage hardware."
Frank Touwen, CEO of EMC South Africa, says: "These new capabilities significantly improve customers' ability to secure and protect their information infrastructure. We have made the upgrade path easy and non-disruptive for existing customers, and we make these features available at no charge to customers under maintenance. With 'Five 9s' availability and new leading security and protection capabilities built-in, no other mid-tier platform delivers as much value or is as economical and easy to use as EMC CLARiiON."
Availability: The latest version of the EMC FLARE storage operating environment will be available in August 2007.
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EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organisations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.
EMC, CLARiiON and FLARE are registered trademarks, and MirrorView, RecoverPoint, SAN Copy and UltraScale are trademarks of EMC Corporation. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Federal Securities Laws. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) risks associated with acquisitions and investments, including the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (v) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (vi) component and product quality and availability; (vii) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (viii) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (ix) war or acts of terrorism; (x) the ability to attract and retain highly-qualified employees; (xi) fluctuating currency exchange rates; and (xii) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC's filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
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