EMC Widens Mid Tier Storage Lead Introduces Next Generation CLARiiON CX Series and Software

Hopkinton, - February 09, 2004 -

EMC Corporation today announced an entirely new line of next-generation CLARiiON® CX networked storage systems designed to provide a broad range of customers with more power, functionality and scalability at an affordable price. Available as new models or as data-in-place upgrades to existing CLARiiON CX systems, the next-generation CLARiiON CX300, CX500 and CX700 systems offer superior price/performance, the most robust set of software in the mid-tier market, and leading investment protection. EMC also announced new CLARiiON-based software capabilities for increased data replication and powerful backup and recovery.

Steve Gray, Systems Manager, Phoenix News Inc, said, "We're continually looking for increased levels of performance, scalability and functionality to support our growing circulation and advertising applications. CLARiiON CX500 comes forward to dramatically improve the horsepower behind our storage infrastructure while leaving room for our business to expand. The real key for our organization has been the strong combination of CLARiiON's market-leading performance and advanced software functionality at a price that meets our budget."

David Donatelli, EMC Executive Vice President, Storage Platforms Operations, said, "Mid-tier storage customers continue to face greater challenges in managing information growth and are demanding more performance and more functionality, but without additional cost. With today's announcement, we continue to deliver increased levels of performance and innovative functionality for a broader range of environments, while continuing to protect customers' storage investments."

Peter Gerr, Analyst, Enterprise Storage Group, said, "EMC continues to set the value bar high and really is helping to drive the pace of the mid-tier storage market. Delivering an entirely new family of next-generation CLARiiON CX systems, EMC continues to drive proven functionality into broader market segments. Customers benefit from this swift product cycle through more frequent performance, scalability and functionality enhancements to meet their ever-growing storage requirements. A key component of this announcement is that existing customers can protect their investments in hardware, software and training."

Next-Generation CLARiiON CX Series

As the leading mid-tier storage offering, CLARiiON continues to offer the widest range of software capabilities while maintaining a clear upgrade path. The next-generation CLARiiON CX systems use the latest version of the FLARE" operating environment, release 13, which supports all new software features and enables compatibility with prior CLARiiON CX and FC4700 systems. The new systems continue to offer customers the unique ability to mix Fibre Channel and ATA disk technologies to create tiered storage within a single system.

• The CLARiiON CX300 - the new entry point of the CX series, is targeted to workgroup environments that require direct-attached and full SAN functionality in a small package. The CLARiiON CX300 delivers 25% more performance than the CX200 it replaces and the broadest range of host operating system support in its class including support for UNIX,* Windows, Linux and Netware. The CX300 now offers customers array-based local replication capabilities via EMC SnapView software. The CX300 is also available as a data-in-place upgrade from any previous-generation CLARiiON CX system.
• The CLARiiON CX500 - is targeted for departmental applications that require more horsepower as well as local and remote replication. The CX500 delivers 100% more performance, connectivity and capacity compared with the prior-generation CX400 and is a data-in-place upgrade from any previous-generation CLARiiON CX system.
• The CLARiiON CX700 - represents the most powerful mid-tier storage array available today. The CX700 delivers 33% more performance than the CX600 and is the first system in its class to deliver 200,000 I/Os per second. Targeted at data center applications, the CX700 offers double the number of back-end channels, allowing linear performance scaling up to 240 drives. The CX700 also is available as a data-in-place upgrade from any previous-generation CLARiiON CX system.

NAS/iSCSI Connectivity & Drive Technology

Customers can easily NAS-enable their new and existing CLARiiON CX systems via EMC's leading Celerra® NAS gateway products. Announced today , the NS700G offers a cost-effective solution for integrating NAS functionality into CLARiiON CX storage environments.

EMC also announced CLARiiON support for the McDATA Eclipse 1620 and IPS 3300 and 4300 iSCSI bridges, allowing customers to start integrating iSCSI into their existing Fibre Channel SAN environments.

In addition, all current and previous CLARiiON CX models can now support 73GB 15,000 RPM Fibre Channel drives, providing up to 50% more performance for demanding applications.

New Replication Functionality

Today, EMC announced new mid-tier replication capabilities - increasing CLARiiON's breadth and depth of market-leading software to help customers reduce cost and increase the frequency of local and remote replications for rapid recovery

• SAN Copy" data mobility software has been enhanced to offer an incremental copy function, allowing customers to reduce bandwidth costs and time required to copy data in SAN environments. The new feature improves the economics associated with deploying SAN Copy for movement of data between systems for test and development or for data mobility in tiered storage environments. Customers also can use this unique, array-based data movement software to migrate information between EMC and non-EMC systems. New SAN Copy support for IBM FAStT and ESS, Sun T3, and HPQ MSA100 and EVA3000 arrays has been added to existing support for HPQ and EMC arrays.
• SnapView" Integration Modules for Microsoft Applications offer customers new ways to leverage storage capabilities directly from applications to simplify key tasks of replicating and recovering information. The SnapView Integration Module for Exchange 2003 and SnapView Integration Module for SQL Server support Microsoft Volume Shadowcopy Services (VSS) and simplify and automate the backup and recovery process in Microsoft environments. Customers can exploit the benefits of SnapView replication with an easy-to-use graphical interface.

Channel Partners

The CLARiiON CX300, CX500 and CX700 systems and software are available immediately from EMC and EMC's broad network of Velocity channel partners including Arrow Electronics, Inc., Avnet Hall-Mark, CDW, Dell, Digital China, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Ideal, MTI and Unisys (see separate releases).

In addition, EMC and Samsung Electronics last week announced an OEM agreement under which Samsung will sell new and future CLARiiON systems in Korea.

Availability

The new CLARiiON CX systems and software are immediately available.

*Solaris, AIX and HP-UX

About EMC

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world leader in products, services and solutions for information storage and management that help organizations extract the maximum value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.