In time for GITEX 2007, EMC expands industry's broadest set of storage technologies

The new systems and software capabilities, which span from the entry-level to the high-end, are set to reach the region to coincide with GITEX 2007 and will help EMC further extend its significant lead in all of the storage market segments it serves across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

"EMC's new storage systems are arriving in the Middle East at a critical juncture, when larger enterprises are consolidating their information and looking for business continuity solutions, while mid-sized organizations are looking to protect their data in a more cost-effective and straightforward, environmentally-friendly way,"

said Mohammed Amin, General Manager, EMC Middle East & North Africa.

"Critical customer requirements in the Middle East include energy efficiency, security and ease-of-use, and EMC is incorporating new capabilities across all of our product lines. Businesses in different industries and of different sizes have diverse information management needs, and we're making sure customers, whether big, medium or small, have the right solution for the right storage job."

The analyst community has hailed the breadth of EMC's new storage offerings. "EMC continues to make life harder for the competition by making more investments across more product offerings at every level of the storage spectrum," said Steve Duplessie, Founder and Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "At the same time, they make it easier for a customer to see the value in a one stop shop. The commitment to innovate across the whole portfolio means users aren't forced into a one size fits all solution. It's pretty impressive."

The new EMC products should reach the Middle East in time for GITEX 2007, at which the company will meet existing customers and channel partners from around the region to discuss the benefits of the solutions. EMC today announced:
• The new EMC® Symmetrix® DMX-4 series of high-end storage systems. EMC's new flagship storage arrays feature an end-to-end 4 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) architecture, a new Fibre Channel point-to-point back-end for higher levels of reliability, and are the first high-end arrays to support both high speed Fibre Channel disk drives and new low-cost 750 GB (gigabyte) SATA II disk drives that can reduce energy consumption by up to 33 percent.

In addition, overall Symmetrix performance will improve by up to 30 percent, local data replication will be up to 10 times faster using EMC TimeFinder® software and synchronous remote replication will be up to 33 percent faster and replication distances doubled when using EMC SRDF® (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility) software. Symmetrix includes an extensive set of built-in, best-in-class security features from RSA, The Security Division of EMC, including new integration with the RSA® enVision™ platform that integrates audit logs from Symmetrix into the enterprise-wide view of audit logs for security and compliance that RSA enVision provides. EMC is the number one provider of high-end storage systems and has led this market for more than a decade.
• The new EMC Celerra® NS20 and NS40 multi-protocol storage systems. The entry-level Celerra NS20 and larger Celerra NS40 systems can be easily deployed in network attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN) environments using iSCSI or Fibre Channel connectivity. Using the new Celerra Startup Assistant software, these systems are easy to use and manage, going from power up to production in 15 minutes while continuing to provide leading price/performance and the most advanced built-in functionality. The EMC Celerra family of systems will also support new 750 GB SATA II disk drives, which can reduce Celerra power consumption by up to 33 percent. EMC is the market share leader in network attached storage.
• A new entry-level EMC Rainfinity® appliance for file archiving. The new Rainfinity File Management Appliance™ (FMA) enables organizations to easily and cost-effectively implement policy-based file management and automatically move and retrieve files across the entire NAS infrastructure. It works with EMC Celerra, other NAS systems and EMC Centera™ content addressed storage (CAS) systems. In addition, customers can upgrade from the FMA to the full Rainfinity Global File Virtualization solution. Rainfinity is part of EMC's complete line of virtualization technologies, the broadest in the industry.
• The newest generation of the award-winning EMC Centera content addressed storage (CAS) system. The new Centera Generation 4 LP (Low Power) nodes were specifically designed by EMC with low-power processors and chipsets, adaptive cooling and more efficient power supplies to reduce energy consumption while also offering 50 percent more storage capacity per node using new 750 GB SATA disk drives. The result: A Generation 4 LP node reduces power and cooling requirements by 67 percent per terabyte. In addition, innovative new security features in the EMC CentraStar® storage operating environment provide greater levels of authentication, system logging and auditing capabilities. The new software is compatible with previous Centera generations and is available as a free upgrade to customers with maintenance contracts and the new Generation 4 LP nodes can be incorporated into existing Centera systems. EMC pioneered the concept of CAS with the introduction of Centera in 2002 and leads the market with more than 3,500 customers and over 150 petabytes of Centera capacity shipped.
• New EMC CLARiiON® CX3 networked storage system capabilities. The latest version of the CLARiiON FLARE® storage operating environment incorporates even more leading functionality with the addition of new built-in security capabilities that provide customers with improved access control and expanded compliance and audit features. In addition, CLARiiON CX3 iSCSI capabilities have been extended with support for native iSCSI remote replication for cost-effective business continuity. The new operating environment, which can be implemented on all CLARiiON CX3 systems as well as previous generation CX300, CX500 and CX700 systems, also enables RAID 6 protection and active/active failover that supports the CLARiiON CX3 family's industry leading "5 nines" availability. CLARiiON systems will also incorporate new 750 GB SATA II disk drives, which enables systems to store the same amount of data while reducing power consumption by up to 33 percent. The latest version of FLARE is available as a free upgrade for customers with maintenance plans from EMC or authorized partners. EMC is the top provider of midrange external RAID storage systems.