Z-Tel bases information infrastructure on EMC enterprise storage

EMC Corporation, the world`s leading provider of enterprise storage systems, software and services, today announced that Z-Tel Technologies, Inc. (

), a leading provider of personalized telecommunications and Internet services, has selected EMC Enterprise Storage systems and software as the foundation of its mission-critical information infrastructure. With EMC Enterprise Storage in place, Z-Tel is able to support rapid expansion of its customer base, deliver superior service availability, and cost-efficiently manage growing information resources.

Z-Tel, based in Tampa, Florida, is helping redefine telecommunications services by enabling customers to manage all business and personal communications, including wireline and wireless phone, Internet, fax and paging services, through a single point of contact.

Bryan Bunting, Z-Tel Senior Vice President of Engineering and Technical Services stated, "As a new company that`s expanding very quickly, we`ve decided to invest in EMC as our information infrastructure at the outset rather than playing catch up later and put our customers and business at risk. We`re adding large numbers of new customers on a daily basis; some will be using our services within minutes of signing up. With EMC Enterprise Storage, we can grow quickly and incrementally, while still continuing to provide customers with extraordinary levels of service availability."

"By consolidating our information from different server platforms and applications onto EMC, we have enormous flexibility in accessing the storage we need from a centralized pool rather than wheeling in another storage box every time we need more capacity," continued Bunting. "EMC Enterprise Storage provides us with a standard method of protecting, managing and sharing information across our entire business, enabling us to achieve economies of scale through simpler storage administration".

To speed up its adoption of the new information infrastructure, Z-Tel turned to Strategic Technologies, a major information systems reseller and integrator, to conduct an in-depth assessment of Z-Tel`s business and technical needs. Strategic Technologies, based in Cary, North Carolina, identified EMC as the most reliable and adaptive solution for Z-Tel.

Chad Fenske, Strategic Technologies` Engineering Business Development Manager said, "EMC`s deep portfolio of mature software and its proven marketplace experience put it head and shoulders above the competition. EMC`s exceptional customer support and responsiveness also were key considerations to a company growing as quickly and dynamically as Z-Tel."

Gary Hetrick, Z-Tel`s Vice President, Technical Projects said, "Because Z-Tel is a gateway to so many services that our customers depend on for their day-to-day communications, there is an urgent need that our network be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition to deploying EMC`s super-reliable Symmetrix systems, we will use EMC TimeFinder software to create mirrored backup copies of our critical databases while production systems are online. This will allow us to shrink our backup windows, giving us more time throughout day and night to support our customers."

Z-Tel`s EMC Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems deliver high-performance storage to Sun clusters and Compaq NT servers. Z-Tel has implemented EMC Volume Logix software to manage the allocation of shared storage and volume access control across its growing environment of servers and storage systems. In addition, Z-Tel is using EMC Symmetrix Manager, a server-resident software application that provides extensive user control, performance monitoring, and capacity trend planning analysis of Symmetrix storage.

EMC`s highly trained Professional Services consultants provided the expertise to move Z-Tel quickly through the planning, design and installation of the EMC storage and software.

Mark Ward, EMC`s Vice President of Global Marketing, said, "As a pioneer in the market for integrated Internet and telephony services, Z-Tel is on the leading edge of technology innovators. Building their information infrastructure on EMC Enterprise Storage solutions gives Z-Tel a major competitive advantage. With EMC, they can add storage on the fly to meet dynamically expanding demand and deliver the around-the-clock availability and superior service this market demands."