ADIC data management software provides ILM foundation

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, April 19, 2004

Advanced Digital Information Corporation (Nasdaq:ADIC), supplier of Intelligent Storage(TM) solutions to the open systems market, announced today the availability of a new version of StorNext Management Suite(R) (SNMS). SNMS is comprehensive policy-based data management software that automates the access, protection and retention of data across different storage resources as its value changes over time. With SNMS, IT departments can reduce total system costs and improve data availability by deploying a single unified storage environment as the foundation for information lifecycle management (ILM), including support for multiple content-aware applications, such as document management and email archiving.

The new SNMS version 2.3 features streamlined migration of data between premium performance RAID arrays and Serial ATA disk resources, and it manages the automated replication of up to four copies of data on different media types, including WORM tape. SNMS 2.3 also increases its industry-leading list of supported platforms and operating systems by adding support for 64-bit Itanium on RedHat Linux. SNMS' heterogeneous support, which now includes Solaris, AIX, IRIX, Windows, and RedHat and SuSE Linux operating systems, allows customers to add new servers, platforms, and applications to their technology infrastructures easily over time to take advantage of new functionality or to reduce costs.

"StorNext Management Suite is the foundation for ILM," said Bill Yaman, vice president, ADIC Software. "As the volume of business-critical data grows, managing it across different storage resources over time is one of the most widespread and costly issues negatively impacting businesses today. ILM is a strategy that can help, but not without the right kind of data management foundation. That is what SNMS provides.

"Today, SNMS helps users reduce costs by giving them an automated way of matching data value to resource use, eliminating time-consuming routine storage management tasks, and reducing the exposure of unprotected data. At the same time, it provides a foundation for ILM by creating a unified, managed storage environment that can support many different kinds of content-aware applications simultaneously."

"The right data management foundation is essential to enable ILM processes. A solution like SNMS that unifies storage and supplies policy-based data management is a powerful tool for users striving to reduce costs and improve efficiencies," said Peter Gerr, analyst, Enterprise Storage Group. "A key differentiator in ADIC's solution is the fact that the company leverages its file system technology to provide a single access point for all the storage resources. This approach means that a diverse set of applications--in fact, any that write data to files--will be able to easily share a common storage and data management infrastructure."