EMC Tops Off Its Symmetrix Line

EMC topped off its high-end Symmetrix line of storage devices on Monday and at the same time unveiled powerful data migration software solutions to move massive stores of information.

The Symmetrix DMX-3 is targeted at users needing storage for massive amounts of information that must be rapidly accessed. Pricing begins at $250,000 and can run into millions of dollars for a particularly powerful configuration. A high-end configuration can scale to one petabyte (1,024 terabytes), EMC said.

The storage company also announced two new data migration solutions, a joint EMC-Softek software product and a homegrown EMC solution called Open Migrator/LM software that moves data between heterogeneous storage systems.

The EMC-Softek Logical Data Migration Facility (LDMF) moves data sets online while automatically updating catalog information, recording the changes made. “Applications remain online during the conversion process,” said Softek executive Amena Ali in a statement. “This reduces the potential for costly outages.”

EMC’s Tom Joyce, vice president of platforms marketing, added in a statement: “When combined with EMC’s new Symmetrix DMX-3 Series storage systems, EMC/Softek LDMF will help our customers minimize the operational disruption of migrating information and allow them to quickly and efficiently leverage the cost benefits of massive consolidation and tiered storage within the array.”The other data migration product, EMC’s Open Migrator/LM software, moves source and target data within storage systems or between two heterogeneous storage systems with specific information remaining available to the application all the while, eliminating downtime periods.

With Symmetrix DMX-3, which complements EMC’s current Symmetrix DMX-2, the firm maintains it is leapfrogging data storage rivals IBM and Hitachi Data Systems in the high-end data storage sweepstakes. The three firms are engaged in a relentless battle to deliver ever higher specifications on the high end of data storage applications.

In unveiling its latest entry, EMC said the DMX-3 system was specifically designed with performance, scalability and reliability features demanded by single array high-end configurations. EMC is bragging about the DMX-3’s near linear scalability, achieved by the addition to the system of channel directors, memory directors and disk directors.

EMC said customer shipments of the DMX-3 will begin in September.