EMC Corporation today announced major improvements to its award-winning EMC® CLARiiON® family of networked storage systems and software, including new UltraPoint Technology that provides customers with greater availability and reliability as their environments scale and become more sophisticated. EMC also expanded the functionality of its CLARiiON software to help customers more effectively manage and protect their information throughout its lifecycle. These improvements build upon CLARiiON's already unmatched levels of availability, reliability and data integrity.

The new CLARiiON CX300-s, CX500-s, and CX700-s Fibre Channel and iSCSI models are based on UltraPoint hardware and software technology that combines point-to-point connectivity to individual disk drives with advanced diagnostic capabilities – resulting in the highest levels of reliability and availability. Unique Virtual LUN Technology enables CLARiiON customers to move data seamlessly within a CLARiiON system to improve performance and capacity utilization. DC power capabilities for the Network Equipment Building System (NEBS) Level 3 and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) EN 300 386 certified CLARiiON CX Series brings leading storage capabilities to customers in mobile and remote environments. EMC today also announced four new models of its CLARiiON Disk Library (see separate news release).

New UltraPoint Technology Extends EMC CLARiiON Availability and Reliability

As customers scale their CLARiiON environments by implementing higher-capacity disk drives, the EMC-developed UltraPoint Technology provides them with the highest levels of reliability and availability. Using new point-to-point disk array enclosures and new drive-level fault detection, isolation and diagnosis capabilities in the CLARiiON FLARE™ operating environment, UltraPoint Technology allows midrange customers to scale their environments more effectively with leading availability and reliability features. UltraPoint Technology is backwards-compatible with previous versions of the CLARiiON CX Series, providing customers with unmatched investment protection.

"EMC's CLARiiON family has been a bellwether for high performance, modularity, high availability and robustness since its inception many years ago," said Arun Taneja, founder of Taneja Group, a technology analyst firm. "As apparent from today's announcement, it continues to lend itself to functional and capacity enhancements that reveal its architectural strength. This is what makes it one of the strongest players in the midrange market."

New Virtual LUN Technology Provides Unique Data Mobility Capabilities Within CLARiiON

EMC's new CLARiiON Virtual LUN Technology provides seamless movement of data within a CLARiiON CX Series system. Virtual LUN Technology enables CLARiiON customers to move data volumes seamlessly online within their system without affecting the application. This unique capability allows customers to improve performance and capacity utilization, for example, by moving data from Fibre Channel-to ATA-based disks within the array.

Preston Gates & Ellis LLP is one of the premier full-service law firms in the U.S. with more than 400 attorneys in 11 locations and a Virtual LUN Technology beta site. "Our experience with EMC CLARiiON's Virtual LUN Technology has been extremely positive," said Astolfo Rueda, Preston Gates & Ellis LLP Network Administrator, "It's critical that all of the information stored in our CLARiiON systems is available 24/7. CLARiiON's Virtual LUN Technology will allow us to easily move data on a real-time basis, within a single CX array, while maintaining our service levels for application availability. We will be able to further implement tiered storage within the array by moving LUNs nondisruptively as the value of our data changes over time."

EMC Extends Benefits of Automated Networked Storage to Mobile and Remote Environments

A new capability of the CLARiiON CX300, CX500 and CX700 Fibre Channel systems is built-in support for DC power. The NEBS Level-3 and ETSI EN 300 386 compliant CLARiiON systems will deliver the benefits of automated networked storage to all customers, especially those in mobile and remote environments often found in government installations and in the telecommunications and oil and gas industries.

Enhanced Software Functionality Improves Management and Protection

EMC has expanded the midrange storage market's most advanced software capabilities to help customers more effectively manage, share and protect their information, including:

• New EMC SnapView™ and EMC MirrorView/S™ capabilities for business continuity. These two leading replication products can now support up to twice as many LUNs. Both SnapView and MirrorView/S also now provide consistency technology support. SnapView offers consistent split capabilities to create a consistent point-in-time copy across multiple volumes. MirrorView/S consistency groups ensure that inter-related volumes stay in synch and are recoverable in the event of a failure.
• SAN Copy/E™ for improved data mobility between CLARiiON AX100/CX300 arrays and larger CX Series storage systems. The new software streamlines the movement of data from edge locations such as branch offices to a core location such as a central data center for backup, disaster recovery and reporting purposes.
• EMC Navisphere™ Manager support for the CLARiiON AX100 provides centralized management for both AX100 systems and CX Series systems from a single, easy-to-use web-based management console.

"Customers continue to scale their midrange environments in order to keep up with the high rate of information growth and to enjoy the TCO benefits of storage consolidation. Our new CLARiiON UltraPoint models, coupled with our enhanced software capabilities, enable customers to meet the challenges associated with scaling high capacity midrange environments and provides them with maximum reliability and availability," said David Donatelli, EMC Executive Vice President of Storage Platforms Operations. "Over the last 18 months, EMC led storage innovation in the midrange market by introducing the CX300, CX500 and CX700, the first CLARiiON Disk Libraries, the low-cost AX100, native iSCSI for CLARiiON and SMI-S support for the CX Series. Today's CLARiiON announcements extend our commitment to protect the existing technology investments of midrange customers by enabling existing customers to enjoy the benefits of this new technology.

Product Information

UltraPoint Technology will be generally available in September 2005. The CLARiiON software enhancements and new EMC CLARiiON Disk Libraries will be generally available in August 2005. All of the announced EMC CLARiiON product offerings will be available directly through EMC and through its worldwide Velocity Channel and distribution network.

In September, Dell plans to offer the CLARiiON UltraPoint Technology under the Dell|EMC brand, adding to its existing portfolio of Dell|EMC CLARiiON AX and CX systems.

More information about the EMC CLARiiON family of networked storage systems can be found at http://www.emc.com/products/systems/clariion.jsp.