EMC has extended the reach of its Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF) remote mirroring and disaster recovery solution to what it believes to be an industry-first 200km using native Fibre Channel or ESCON interconnections, with no expected impact on performance.
The enhancement more than triples the previously qualified distances, and ensures customers can more efficiently manage challenges ranging from increasing information workloads and cost constraints to rolling power blackouts and natural disasters.
EMC has also extended the qualified distance between Symmetrix and server systems (host channel extension) to 200 km over Fibre Channel-based storage networks.
Fully qualified as EMC E-Lab Tested, the solution consists of EMC SRDF real-time data mirroring software, EMC Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems, EMC Connectrix Fibre Channel connectivity devices, and Nortel Networks OPTera Metro 5200 Multiservice Platform for DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing).
"The ability to network storage facilities located across greater geographic distances without the need for protocol conversion and without sacrificing performance enhances users` ability to protect mission-critical data in the event of a disaster. In addition, real-time data mirroring from the primary data centre to more widely distributed locations can provide improved service levels across the enterprise," says Graham Prime, product marketing manager at EMC SA.
"With the amount of data doubling annually, our customers demand solutions that enable their IT administrators to maximise storage utilisation and manage more data with greater efficiency. By teaming to deliver SAN extensibility, EMC and Nortel Networks enable our joint customers to consolidate storage resources more flexibly, perform bulk data transfers faster and more reliably, broaden the choice of data centre topologies, and lower the cost of storage infrastructure. Ultimately, we`re tearing down the barriers to widespread deployment of storage networks," he adds.
"Nortel Networks and EMC continue to demonstrate joint leadership in optically networked storage solutions, bringing the value of storage to metropolitan areas and beyond," says Peter Evans, vice president, Metro Optical Networks, Nortel Networks. "Customers can now extend the benefits of infrastructure consolidation, business continuity and content distribution over a greater distance, which can help them improve utilisation of corporate resources, lower operational costs and speed access to information."
The extended distance also enables creation of virtual data centres over greater distances, helping enterprises consolidate important information resources and reduce management costs.
By significantly extending the reach of Fibre Channel and ESCON, the EMC-Nortel Networks solution helps eliminate the need for transporting storage data via leased, low-bandwidth T1 or T3 lines. T3-based transport can be up to three times more expensive than leasing Fibre Channel and ESCON links. In addition, Fibre Channel and ESCON over DWDM provides orders of magnitude more bandwidth.
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