CLOUD

EMC Corporation, its LEGATO Software division and Microsoft Corporation today launched a series of seminars designed to educate customers on how to better consolidate and protect information stored at their branch offices and other remote sites. They are showcasing a branch office data consolidation and business continuity solution to cost-effectively address the challenge of protecting rapidly proliferating data dispersed across multiple remote locations. The solution features EMC's NetWin® 200 network attached storage (NAS) system running Microsoft® Windows® Storage Server 2003 software, part of Windows Server System and LEGATO's RepliStor® software. Up to 60 percent of a large organization's information may be located away from the main data center, either at branch offices or other remote facilities, often on disparate storage systems and operating environments. Effectively managing and protecting that information and recovering it in the event of an outage is a significant challenge for IT managers. The 10-city seminar series will highlight ways customers can reduce cost and complexity by consolidating their disparate systems to EMC's NetWin 200, built on the Windows Storage Server 2003 platform. Once consolidated, information can be efficiently and cost-effectively replicated across multiple sites for automatic failover and branch data can be routinely backed up to a central location with minimal performance impact using LEGATO software. The end result is better information management and reduced risk that outages and other failures disrupt business operations. "The centralization of data and its management is key to controlling risk," said William Hurley, Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Storage Group. "IT managers face many risks to their business, from lengthy recovery times to vulnerability when it comes to compliance regulations. Consolidation and continuous replication through network attached storage helps minimize these and other risks while simplifying the overall IT infrastructure. EMC, LEGATO and Microsoft are delivering an integrated solution that will help solve problems customers face today while providing them with a cost-effective platform for future growth and the ability to easily support new applications at each branch location." EMC's NetWin 200 NAS system couples the power of Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2003 with the advanced storage functionality of EMC's proven CLARiiON CX networked storage platforms. EMC's NetWin 200 has undergone rigorous testing of all hardware components and kernel-level software and is listed in Microsoft's Hardware Catalog. LEGATO's RepliStor software uses patented, asynchronous, real-time data replication to copy Microsoft Windows data via LAN and WAN networks. RepliStor is able to prepare any number of copies across any distance between the Windows servers and on any type of Windows storage system. Once consolidated, LEGATO's NetWorker information protection software provides a range of high performance backup and recovery capabilities. The seminar series began today in Boston with additional presentations scheduled for Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Irvine, Calif., Irving, Texas, Mountain View, Calif., New York City, Redmond, Wash. and Washington, D.C. Additional information is available at www.protectandconsolidate.com. EMC, LEGATO and Microsoft will also be showcasing the joint solution to thousands of attendees at CeBIT 2004 (Hall 1, Stand 7f2) in Hannover, Germany from March 18-24.