EMC Corporation, the world leader in information storage and management, today announced it has received a 2005 Well-Connected Award from CMP Media LLC's Network Computing magazine. The editors recognized EMC CLARiiON DL300 Disk Library (CDL) for excellence in enterprise storage networking over other solutions because of its ease of management and overall completeness.

Dedicated to serving IT professionals and decision makers, Network Computing focuses on helping readers understand, select and incorporate network applications to suit their enterprise needs. Winners of the 2005 Well-Connected Awards were selected by the publication's expert editorial staff who worked at length to research and test technology products over the course of the year. The staff selected the winners based on evaluations of networking products, as well as editors' choices for the past 12 months.

Originally awarded the Network Computing "Editor's Choice" award in a comparative review of virtual tape libraries in late 2004 – due to its "capacity, support, and overall fit and finish" – EMC CLARiiON Disk Library makes backup to disk easy to deploy in traditional backup environments. By combining the power of CLARiiON, EMC's industry-leading midrange storage family with ATA disks and 100 percent-compatible tape library emulation in a single appliance, the CLARiiON Disk Library enables customers to improve service levels for data backup and restore operations without changing their infrastructure or backup applications.

"We are honored to be selected by Network Computing's expert editorial staff for providing the most 'Well-Connected' virtual tape library," said Tom Joyce, EMC's Vice President of Storage Platforms Marketing. "EMC CLARiiON Disk Library provides customers with a highly available, fully automated backup appliance that delivers improved service level agreements, and we are happy that its leadership and excellence are being recognized."

"The Well-Connected Awards are the only industry awards given by technologists based on real-world product testing and evaluation. These awards take the pulse of the technology industry and reflect the best of what IT has to offer," said Fritz Nelson, Vice President and Group Publisher of the Network Computing Enterprise Architecture Group. "This is an important distinction from any other award program – the products selected in the Well-Connected Awards are unique because they have been graded with the same criteria IT professionals use to make purchasing decisions – truly the most outstanding products and services available."