EMC Symmetrix, the world`s leading information storage system, has been honoured with the Network Magazine Product of the Year Award. Following an in-depth, three-month process, the magazine`s independent review board chose EMC`s Symmetrix 8730 information storage system based on real-world customer business requirements including price/performance, technical ingenuity, new features and applications, and serviceability.
The Product of the Year Award, now in its 14th year, is presented, according to Editor-in-Chief Steve Steinke, "... to the most significant products that Network Magazine readers need to grow their business and organizations."
Introduced in April 2000, EMC`s Symmetrix 8730 quickly became the most successful and widely accepted new enterprise information storage system in industry history.
Joe Tucci, EMC President and CEO, said, "The constantly evolving Symmetrix architecture is unique in its ability to protect customers` investments through smooth and rapid introduction of new technologies, persistent pursuit of software perfection and through backward compatibility with legacy investments. The market continues to be barraged by flavor-of-the-month architectures, many of which were announced over the past year. Symmetrix thrives in its fifth generation of innovation and serves as the industry`s best-performing, most functional, most reliable, most scalable and by far most open enterprise information storage architecture. These characteristics are easy to aspire to, but very difficult to achieve."
"Symmetrix has played a seminal role in IT history by enabling and accelerating the information explosion. Evidence of the strength and credibility of the Symmetrix brand has never been more compelling," added Tucci. "It`s about real-world and balanced performance and total return on information to maximize the value of customers` IT investments. It`s about available and thoroughly tested and proven solutions, not future promises. Most important, it`s about the role Symmetrix plays as the design center for the world`s most extensive collection of value-added offerings."
Symmetrix is surrounded and fortified by the industry`s deepest, most comprehensive set of offerings, including storage software functionality, open infrastructure, top-tier alliances, interoperability, standards compliance and customer support.
Software Platform Development
As a result of an aggressive software focus, EMC widened its worldwide storage software market share leadership in 2000 to 25.5%, more than nine percentage points ahead of the next closest vendor, according to Dataquest.
Last year alone, EMC introduced more new software products and enhancements than in all of EMC history. EMC invests more in storage R&D than any other company, 75% of which is dedicated to new software and enhancing existing EMC software platforms such as SRDF, TimeFinder, ControlCenter, PowerPath, Navisphere and Access Logix that enable customers to scale and generate exponential value from their infrastructures.
Open Solutions, Open Support
In addition to delivering the world`s highest capacity in a single system (69.5 terabytes), Symmetrix provides the widest range of tested connectivity to any combination of operating systems spanning mainframes, UNIX, Microsoft Windows, Linux, AS/400 and others. Symmetrix currently connects to more than 250 different server models and non-EMC storage systems, 40 operating systems, 50 cluster configurations, and 145 various network elements (hubs, HBAs, switches, DWDM devices). EMC has extended this openness through qualification of non-EMC storage to interoperate in mixed-vendor EMC Enterprise Storage Network (ESN) managed environments.
EMC also has forged Cooperative Support Agreements (CSAs) with more than 30 companies representing more than 100 products qualified by EMC to interoperate in the ESN. These clear, bilateral agreements and procedures ensure fast, seamless resolution of customer issues, without vendor finger-pointing.
Partnerships and Alliances -- One Plus One Equals Three
EMC`s extensive and deep technical relationships with other industry leaders such as Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, SAP, Accenture and many others enable customers to build a solid EMC E-Infostructure. This infrastructure leverages investments they have already made in these companies` products and services and ensures future investments will be optimized through tight integration.
Third party software integration is further enhanced through the E-Infostructure Developers Program (EIDP), enabling independent software vendors (ISVs) to develop applications that are tightly integrated with Symmetrix systems and software. Through the program, EMC makes a wide range of APIs (application programming interfaces) available to development partners. EIDP currently includes 73 member companies with a combined total of more than 40 generally available and shipping EMC-integrated software applications.
Safe Openness Through Interoperability and Standards
According to a recent InformationWeek survey of 385 IT professionals, EMC ranked #1 in interoperability standards, product reliability and three other important categories. The heart of this achievement is the "EMC E-Lab," where EMC has invested more than $1 billion and currently houses more than 1.6 petabytes of storage, all dedicated to the exhaustive tests needed to ensure interoperability in multivendor storage networks. EMC performs the industry`s most rigorous tests of interoperability, standards compliance, reliability, durability and performance under real-world performance loads. EMC E-Lab facilities house dozens of world-class labs and more than 1,000 engineers dedicated to ensuring the interoperability of today`s complex heterogeneous storage networks.
EMC also is at the forefront of driving industry standards through its leadership with the various standards efforts, including the Fibre Alliance (EMC conceived and sponsors), Storage Networking Industry Association (EMC chairs), and various other relevant industry working groups and committees such as IETF (EMC chairs the iSCSI working group), ANSI and others.
Support as a Competitive Weapon
InformationWeek also rated EMC #1 in both after-sale service and service-level guarantees. The company consistently is rated number one in customer satisfaction by independent research firms. As Carl Howe, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, recently told Forbes Magazine, "EMC has the highest ratings we`ve ever seen - in any customer survey, for any company, ever."
EMC`s "guilty until proven innocent" approach to mixed-vendor storage network service and support results from a service organization driven not by a P&L-based business model, but by customer satisfaction and customer retention. The worldwide EMC Global Services network comprises more than 6,000 EMC employees, providing full life-cycle support to EMC customers and partners before, during and following the sale.
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