SCIENCE

HOPKINTON, MA -- EMC Corporation today announced it has tripled the distance possible with Fibre Channel- or ESCON-based storage networks, helping customers more efficiently manage challenges ranging from increasing information workloads and cost constraints to rolling power blackouts and natural disasters. EMC has extended the reach of its Symmetrix® Remote Data Facility (SRDF™) remote mirroring and disaster recovery solution to an industry-first 200 kilometers using native Fibre Channel or ESCON interconnections, with no expected impact on performance. The enhancement more than triples the previously qualified distances. Further, EMC has extended the qualified distance between Symmetrix and server systems (host channel extension) to 200 km over Fibre Channel-based storage networks. Fully qualified as EMC E-Lab Tested, the solution consists of EMC SRDF real-time data mirroring software, EMC Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems, EMC Connectrix Fibre Channel connectivity devices, and Nortel Networks™ OPTera™ Metro 5200 Multiservice Platform for DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing). The ability to network storage facilities located across greater geographic distances without the need for protocol conversion and without sacrificing performance enhances users' ability to protect mission-critical data in the event of a disaster. In addition, real-time data mirroring from the primary data center to more widely distributed locations can provide improved service levels across the enterprise. "With the amount of data doubling annually, our customers demand solutions that enable their IT administrators to maximize storage utilization and manage more data with greater efficiency," said Chuck Hollis, EMC Vice President of Markets and Products. "By teaming to deliver industry-leading SAN extensibility, EMC and Nortel Networks enable our joint customers to consolidate storage resources more flexibly, perform bulk data transfers faster and more reliably, broaden the choice of data center topologies, and lower the cost of storage infrastructure. Ultimately, we're tearing down the barriers to widespread deployment of storage networks." "Nortel Networks and EMC continue to demonstrate joint leadership in optically networked storage solutions, bringing the value of storage to metropolitan areas and beyond," said Peter Evans, Vice President, Metro Optical Networks, Nortel Networks. "Customers can now extend the benefits of infrastructure consolidation, business continuity and content distribution over a greater distance, which can help them improve utilization of corporate resources, lower operational costs and speed access to information." In the qualified configuration (Figure A), storage is consolidated to two sites (Sites B & C) on a metropolitan DWDM ring. Between these sites, real-time mirroring protects mission-critical data via EMC SRDF software and Nortel Networks DWDM technology. Site A demonstrates the ability to separate database servers from storage over the optical ring. EMC has tested and qualified up to 200 km the geographical distance between FC endpoints. Consolidating and managing storage resources in a central location is often more cost effective because it enables disparate enterprise locations to share storage resources. The extended distance announced today also enables creation of virtual data centers over greater distances, helping enterprises consolidate important information resources and reduce management costs. By significantly extending the reach of Fibre Channel and ESCON, the EMC-Nortel Networks solution helps eliminate the need for transporting storage data via leased, low-bandwidth T1 or T3 lines. T3-based transport can be up to three times more expensive than leasing Fibre Channel and ESCON links. In addition, Fibre Channel and ESCON over DWDM provides orders of magnitude more bandwidth. For more information visit www.EMC.com