EMC, others target smarter data storage

Big names, such as EMC, and lesser-knowns, such as WysDM, will be among the vendors rolling out products this week designed to help companies keep better track of the data they back up.

The flurry of product news will flow from this week's Storage Networking World event in Orlando.

EMC will introduce a correlation and monitoring tool for its Legato Networker customers, going beyond the Backup Advisor product it already offers via an OEM deal with WysDM.

EMC’s Networker Dashboard performs such jobs as displaying in real time the current status of a backup save group and the components involved, and generates alerts for events that have affected the success of a backup and offers possible resolutions.

Dashboard is expected to be available next month starting at $2,000.

EMC also is airing backup management software for Microsoft SharePoint. It's expected to ship next month, starting at $2,500.

WysDM, a company started five years ago by former EMC and other executives, is adding application-discovery capabilities to its products WysDM for Backups and WysDM for File Servers. The updated versions help customers gather information on applications, recovery points and restoration times to ensure regulatory compliance and business continuity. The software pulls information from external databases, including SQL databases; Lightweight Directory Access Protocol sources; flat, comma-delimited files; and structured XML files.

Greg Schulz, senior analyst for consultancy StorageIO, says WysDM and other companies, such as Aptare, are exploiting event correlation, root-cause analysis and other techniques to boost data management and protection.

“WysDM, in particular, continues to broaden its ability to collect data from diverse, cross-technology domain sources and formats,” he says. “In the past, backup-reporting tools either from backup vendors or third-party providers were seen as nice to have. With the proliferation of servers and increasing amounts of data, data-protection management tools with automated event-collection and correlation are becoming must-have technologies."

Pricing for WysDM for Backups and WysDM for File Servers begins at $15,000 for 50 clients

Also this week, Aptare is expected to announce that its StorageConsole product will support EMC’s Legato Networker and Symantec’s Backup Exec. The backup management software already supports IBM/Tivoli Storage Manager.

Separately, IBM will use the Storage Networking World event to roll out six models of its System Storage 3599 Tape Media, a cartridge that has 700GB of capacity. The 2599, which IBM claims is the largest on the market, is designed for backup, archiving and restoration, and includes a Write Once Read Many format and encryption capabilities. It is expected to be available in January, starting at $5,400 for 20 cartridges.