Strengthening customers` ability to deploy Windows NT applications in mission-critical environments, EMC Corporation today announced new Windows NT connectivity options and Windows NT software for its market-leading Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems. These solutions build on EMC`s multi-year lead as the world`s only storage provider able to consolidate, manage and protect information from heterogeneous systems simultaneously across the enterprise. Michael C. Ruettgers, EMC President and CEO, stated, "The maturation of Windows NT to mission-critical status and the increasing consolidation of NT with other major operating systems are stimulating growth of a market for enterprise storage that we expect will increase from more than $10 billion in 1997 to as much as $35 billion by 2000. As this trend unfolds, EMC remains the only vendor capable of providing enterprise storage for customers` entire line-up of operating systems and connectivity options." Announced today were: * Fibre Channel connectivity on Symmetrix for Windows NT servers* EMC PowerPath load balancing and path failover software for Windows NT, Sun Solaris, HP-UX and IBM AIX servers* Windows NT support in EMC`s Symmetrix Manager for Open Systems software* Cluster support for Microsoft Cluster Services for Windows NT 4.0In addition, the company also announced EMC Professional Services, EMC Data Manager 4.0 (see separate releases), and availability of 18-gigabyte drives in several of its Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems, doubling capacity within these systems while maintaining the world`s highest levels of performance and availability.According to the newly released information management survey conducted for EMC by New York-based research firm Find/SVP, 94% of IS executives report consolidation of previously dispersed data is now underway and 41% are already consolidating NT-based data along with their mainframe and open systems data. "As this trend progresses, companies are looking for ways to support greater distances between servers and storage systems, and to support the ever-increasing amounts and types of corporate data," Ruettgers added.Tim Hill, Vice President, Technical Services, Profit Recovery Group, stated, "As the world`s largest recovery audit firm, the amount of information we`re dealing with is doubling annually. EMC is uniquely positioned to bring this level of enterprise scalabilty to our Windows NT environment. In addition, the information management and information protection benefits we get from a single, consolidated Symmetrix storage platform across all of our servers are absolutely critical to our ability to compete globally."Fibre Channel for Consolidation of NT ServersIn December, EMC announced the world`s only multi-platform Fibre Channel storage systems, for the first time enabling organizations with heterogeneous computing environments to take full advantage of the emerging Fibre Channel connectivity standard through EMC`s industry-leading Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems. Today, EMC added Windows NT servers to the list of supported Fibre Channel connections.Fibre Channel connectivity on Symmetrix assists the consolidation of corporate information and disparate servers into the data center by enabling greater distances between servers and Symmetrix storage systems, and through support for the ever-increasing amounts of data and types of corporate applications. This enables distributed servers and applications to take advantage of the benefits of consolidated enterprise storage.Symmetrix is the only single integrated storage system to provide simultaneous support for multiple Fibre Channel and other connectivity options including Fast-Wide Differential SCSI, Ultra SCSI and mainframe ESCON connections. To date, more than one-third of Symmetrix systems shipped with Fibre Channel connections have included Fibre Channel and either open systems Fast-Wide Differential SCSI, Ultra SCSI or mainframe ESCON connections.High Availability SolutionsLengthening its lead in delivering the highest performance and data availability to Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, HP-UX and Windows NT users, EMC also announced today EMC PowerPath -- the world`s first software product to provide load balancing and path failover capability.The software`s load balancing feature increases information access performance by automatically distributing data traffic across all available data paths (up to 32 on a fully configured Symmetrix). The new path failover capability provides a higher degree of business continuance by eliminating the possibility of application failure due to a server data path failure. Data availability is improved by automatically and non-disruptively re-directing the workload from a failed path to an alternative data path.To enhance the clustering capability of Windows NT, EMC also announced cluster support for Microsoft Cluster Services for Windows NT 4.0 (MSCS). EMC Symmetrix now provides the MSCS-required shared SCSI connection, allowing separate connection of cluster servers and eliminating single points of failure that threaten the availability of shared SCSI connections.Information Management for NTEMC also introduced Windows NT support in its Symmetrix Manager for Open Systems software. This storage management software simplifies management of Symmetrix open systems storage products, including Symmetrix 3000 and Symmetrix 5000 Enterprise Storage Platform (ESP) systems. With this new support, Symmetrix customers can monitor and control their Windows NT and UNIX storage environments from a centralized management system. This capability enhances the value of Symmetrix Enterprise Storage by reducing the time and resources required to configure and monitor Symmetrix storage systems in Windows NT environments. Pricing and AvailabilityFibre Channel connectivity for Windows NT will be available in 30 days; U.S. list price for the Symmetrix Fibre Channel director is $35,000. EMC PowerPath software is available immediately for SUN Solaris servers, in 60 days for IBM AIX servers and in 90 days for Windows NT and HP-UX servers; U.S. list prices range from $9,500 to $43,000 depending on the server. Windows NT support in Symmetrix Manager for Open Systems software is available immediately; U.S. list price is $15,000. Cluster support for Microsoft Cluster Services for Windows NT 4.0 is available immediately. 18GB drives are available immediately for new Symmetrix 3330/5330 systems and Symmetrix 3430/5430 systems.
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