EMC Visualizes Hoi Polloi

EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) today said it has started shipping SAN software -- aimed at small and midsized businesses -- that it picked up from two recent acquisitions (see EMC Offers More Visual Software).

VisualSRM, a storage resource management tool based on the code developed by Astrum Software, provides file-level reporting and centralized storage resource management across all of an organization's major storage and server platforms. EMC says VisualSRM supports a wide range of applications, including Microsoft Exchange, Oracle, Sybase, and SQL Server databases, and that it also integrates with other storage management applications from vendors including Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) (NYSE: CA), Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), and Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS). (See EMC Sucks Up Astrum.)

VisualSAN, developed by Prisa Networks, provides administrators with a single view of all devices across their storage networks and delivers network, performance, and configuration management capabilities (see EMC to Acquire Prisa, Finally).

VisualSRM pricing starts at $2,000, while VisualSAN starts at $6,000.

EMC says it deliberately developed separate products for the small-to-midsized business (SMB) category. By contrast, says Tony Marzulli, VP of open software marketing, EMC's competitors are trying to "skinny-down" their applications for the midtier market. "We think that's a huge mistake," he says. "Customers are not going to want to deal with the heaviness of enterprise-scale apps."Another key element of EMC's strategy for marketing to SMBs is to improve its focus on resellers that cater to companies in the segment, says Marzulli. "We haven't been seen as having the most channel-friendly strategy," he concedes.

EMC estimates that it has more than 300 reseller partners today -- a number it would like to increase. The company says about 70 percent of its midtier products are sold through partners.

Also today, as part of its wider SMB push, EMC announced enhancements to its software offerings for the Clariion line of midrange storage systems, starting with a new version of the Clariion Flare operating environment, release 12.

New features available with Flare version 12 include: "on-the-fly" capacity expansion to dynamically expand storage volumes; the ability to instantly restore SnapView snapshots; SAN Copy support for HP storage systems (with support for IBM, Sun Microsystems Inc., Hitachi Data Systems, and additional HP StorageWorks arrays coming in the fourth quarter); and the SnapView Integration Module for Exchange (SIME), which automates backup and rapid restore of Exchange databases.

EMC says MirrorView, the remote replication software for the Clariion family, will be extended to support asynchronous replication in the first quarter of 2004.Existing customers can upgrade to the new Flare operating environment for free. SIME -- which is a combination of software and professional services -- is priced starting at $6,500.

Todd Spangler, US Editor, Byte and Switch