EMC launches new enterprise replication and data mobility tools

EMC has introduced new enterprise replication and data mobility software. This will allow customers to easily move and replicate data among heterogeneous storage systems and remotely and locally replicate their information. The new set of tools, which run on the EMC Symmetrix DMX Series of networked storage systems, is claimed to be “the broadest in the industry for optimising the protection and placement of data as part of an information lifecycle management (ILM) strategy”.

The new tools include:
* EMC Open Replicator for Symmetrix - innovative new software that provides high performance, storage-independent replication for multi-vendor storage environments. Customers can now copy, relocate and incrementally update remote data volumes, at high speeds, between various storage systems with no application performance impact. Customers will be able to use EMC Open Replicator for Symmetrix to replicate and recover data between systems from EMC, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Hitachi Data Systems. The enabling software runs entirely within the EMC Symmetrix DMX array and does not require additional hardware. It can be used for:
- Data mobility - distributing or collecting data volumes for distributed/parallel processing and/or centralised data collection and backup;
- Remote data vaulting - copying data volumes to remote storage for recovery purposes; and
- Data migration - online relocation of data volumes from existing storage arrays during technology upgrades and consolidations.

Other unique features enable refreshing of remote volumes by sending only incremental changes and the ability to migrate volumes to the DMX "on demand," allowing applications to be brought online before the entire data set has been relocated.

* EMC SRDF/Star - a three-site business continuity solution that allows customers to replicate their data over unlimited distances among three data centres. SRDF/Star extends the concurrent synchronous and asynchronous replication capabilities of SRDF by enabling any two of the three data centres to automatically continue replicating data in the event that one becomes unavailable. A customer mirroring data between a primary data centre in New York and secondary data centres in New Jersey and London would be able to continue replicating between New Jersey and London in the event of an outage at the New York centre, ensuring continuous protection and minimising data loss in the event of a multi-site outage.

* EMC SRDF Mode Change feature - allows customers to easily switch from real-time synchronous replication to near-real-time asynchronous replication on demand. Customers using synchronous replication can now switch modes to reduce bandwidth costs and improve application performance when needed.

* EMC SRDF with VMware qualification - helps customers greatly reduce the costs of maintaining multiple servers at a secondary site for business continuity purposes. SRDF with VMware eliminates the need to maintain a duplicate set of costly servers at a limited use recovery site. Now, VMware can be used to create "virtual servers" at the remote site, each with access to real-time replicas of the Symmetrix production data, enabling a rapid restart from the secondary site at a fraction of the cost.

* EMC TimeFinder/Clone - expands the in-array replication capabilities of EMC's TimeFinder software and gives customers greater flexibility and choice to meet business demands. With TimeFinder/Clone, customers can now concurrently make up to 16 copies of their data and protect the copies using economical RAID5 protection, while ensuring consistent replicas across multiple arrays. With TimeFinder/Clone, EMC customers can make more copies for less, enabling wider use for shortening backup windows, providing instant recoveries, accelerating application testing and enabling parallel processing.

* EMC mainframe replication compatibility features are delivered as a result of a previously announced licensing agreement with IBM. EMC is able to offer customers mainframe replication capabilities that are equivalent to those from IBM, including EMC Compatible Flash for internal point-in-time copies, EMC Compatible Peer for remote replication and EMC Compatible Extended for asynchronous mainframe data replication. These products allow mainframe customers to deploy EMC Symmetrix-based replication technology that is compatible with IBM-specific functions provided by FlashCopy), PPRC and XRC.

www.emc.com

•Date: 5th October 2004 • Region: N.America •Type: Article •Topic: IT continuity
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