By launching Windows NT connectivity options for its Symmetrix subsystems, EMC has become the only enterprise storage provider able to consolidate, manage and protect data from the complete spectrum of heterogeneous systems.Hugh Wason, country manager of the company`s local subsidiary, says the increasing incidence of Microsoft`s server operating system in the enterprise has fuelled market demand for EMC to deliver its trademark performance and reliability to that platform."The maturation of [Windows] NT to mission-critical status and its increasing consolidation with other major operating systems has stimulated demand for true enterprise-class storage," he says, explaining that this is consistent with the findings of EMC`s annual survey of IS executives worldwide.Conducted by New York-based research firm, Find/SVP, last year`s survey reported a high level of consolidation underway - with just under half of this involving NT. "These numbers indicate the growing need to support larger volumes of corporate data for servers separated by increasingly greater distances," he says.Graham Prime, senior product manager at EMC SA, says the company`s newly announced products meet this demand head on. "Fibre Channel capability on Symmetrix for Windows NT servers enables the storage subsystem to transmit and receive data at speeds approaching 100MB/sec over extended distances," he says."More importantly, Fibre Channel connectivity will allow large numbers of distributed servers to be consolidated onto a single Symmetrix subsystem. December last year saw EMC launch the only multi-platform Fibre Channel storage subsystems offering owners of heterogeneous computing environments to take advantage of the fast emerging high-speed connectivity standard for the first time. Today`s announcement extends the functionality to NT.Other related products just launched on the SA market include:* EMC PowerPath software for Windows NT, Sun Solaris, HP-UX and IBM AIX;* Windows NT support in EMC`s Symmetrix Manager for Open Systems software; and* Support for Windows NT 4.0 cluster services (MSCS)."EMC PowerPath software brings load balancing and fail-over functionality for Symmetrix systems to the NT, Sun Solaris, HP-UX and IBM AIX platforms," says Prime. "This increases information access performance by automatically distributing data traffic across all available data paths - up to 32 on a fully configured symmetrix subsystem."The capability provides a higher degree of business continuance by eliminating the possibility of application failure due to a server path fault. "Data availability is improved by automatically and non-disruptively re-directing the workload from a failed path to an alternative one," he says.Prime says the added support for NT in EMC`s Manager for Open Systems software introduces information management to the platform. "It is now possible to monitor and control Windows NT and Unix storage environments from a centralised management system," he says.Referring to Microsoft Cluster Services for Windows NT 4.0 (MSCS), Prime says EMC Symmetrix subsystems now provide the MSCS-required shared channel connection. "This enables separate paths to cluster servers and the elimination of the single points of failure which threaten availability."
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