EMC tailors SRDF for data mobility software market

EMC has announced major new functionality for its data replication and disaster recovery software, Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF).

The new software - SRDF-DM, for Data Mobility - is a storage-based solution tailored specifically to meet the demands of customers` fast-growing applications, such as Web content distribution, data centre migrations, application development and storage load balancing.

Because at its heart it is SRDF, the new solution moves data in any form from where it is created to where it can generate maximum business value, regardless of server platform, operating system, database or application. "According to Gartner Dataquest, the worldwide data mobility/replication market is a $1.2 billion market today, forecast to grow to $2.8 billion by 2004.

"Conventional data replication or mobility solutions require the use of server and networking resources, and are available for mainframe or open servers, but not both. These solutions are complex to implement and maintain, requiring separate applications and multiple personnel for each deployment. With SRDF-DM, customers purchase a single licence for the Symmetrix system only," says Graham Prime, product marketing manager at EMC SA.

SRDF-DM provides customers with a single solution for all their data mobility requirements, eliminating the need for multiple DM applications, reducing training time and enhancing user productivity.

"Data that was in one place last week, last month, or last year may not be in the optimal position today," he says. "Information delivers maximum business value when it is in motion and being accessed, delivered, re-purposed and shared anywhere across the enterprise and beyond. SRDF-DM leverages SRDF`s six-year, 9 000-licence track record, offering customers a cost-effective, special-purpose software tool for addressing their most business-critical data mobility challenges."

Innovation, with Tested Interoperability SRDF/DM uses SRDF`s patented Adaptive Copy mode to transfer data between multiple Symmetrix enterprise storage systems at high speed using public and private networks. By allowing a specified time lag between the source and target volumes, Adaptive Copy enables applications using that volume to avoid propagation delays while data is being transferred to the remote site.

"This feature is particularly useful in applications that transfer large amounts of data rapidly, such as migrating data centres or distributing Web content from the core of the enterprise to its edge," Prime adds.

SRDF-DM moves storage data originating from any server platform, any operating system, locally within a storage area network (SAN) or remotely through a wide area network (WAN), while the data is current. Because SRDF is a Symmetrix-based solution, it can be used with some 250 server models, 40 operating systems, 50 cluster configurations, and all the leading database systems.

"SRDF-DM enables data mobility between two or more Symmetrix systems for purposes other than disaster recovery. For complete disaster recovery and restart, full-function SRDF remains the preferred solution and can be purchased separately," he concludes.