STORAGE

Right data. Right Device. Right time. And now, right partner solution. Today at FORUM, its annual customer conference, StorageTek, the leading provider of enterprise information lifecycle management, introduced TekSelect partner program, a standardized program to accommodate customer demand for a single point of contact and support for integrated storage solutions. TekSelect partners are hand picked and recognized as leaders in their respective areas of expertise, enabling StorageTek to help enterprises gain control of their growing storage environments, while significantly reducing the time, cost, complexity and risk involved in storage management. "As data storage complexity increases, companies are looking for ways to more simply implement the solutions they need," said JR Roedel, StorageTek director, Information Lifecycle Management Solutions. "StorageTek's TekSelect was carefully designed as a way to reduce risks associated with deploying emerging storage technologies while giving customers a way to protect their infrastructure investments." TekSelect builds on StorageTek's TekAlliance partner program where customer solutions are tested and verified as being interoperable with existing StorageTek solutions by adding advanced support and implementation services. The first TekSelect companies and supported products include AMCC Storage, Brocade, Emulex, Gresham, EMC Legato information management products, JNI, McDATA, Open Text, Qlogic, IBM Tivoli, and VERITAS, with CA and CNT expected to follow. All companies' tested solutions are certified interoperable with StorageTek's current enterprise information lifecycle management solutions and are available for sale by StorageTek's direct sales force and partners. "Companies want to remove as much complexity and risk as they can when implementing tiered storage solutions," said Janet Waxman, Vice President Hardware Channels, IDC analyst firm. "Customers want to know they can buy best-of-breed information lifecycle management solutions from a single vendor and that the solutions are proven and tested to work right out of the box. Programs like StorageTek's TekSelect will make this much easier to accomplish." Background: StorageTek is a $2 billion global company that enables businesses, through its information lifecycle management strategy, to align the cost of storage with the value of information. The company's innovative storage solutions manage the complexity and growth of information, lower costs, improve efficiency and protect investments. For more information, see www.storagetek.com, or call 1.800.877.9220 or 303.673.5151.