Having acquired virtualisation, data management and
security tools, EMC is integrating them into its core storage
platform to produce a new breed of system.
EMC is to release a new breed of system and information
management tools. However, it needs to carry out extensive
integration first.
The storage supplier has gone through a highly acquisitive stage
where it bought in virtualisation, data management and security
technologies, adding these to its core storage platform.
The result will be a product line that will rely on simpler
virtualised IT systems and reach deeper into the application stack,
giving users simpler IT management and more automation and
control.
EMC is still open to more technology acquisitions if they fit
into its strategy, said Adrian McDonald, vice-president and general
manager, UK & Ireland, at EMC. “The customers are interested in
a more joined-up product line,” he added.
At the root of that strategy is a desire to become the central
supplier for what the company calls “the information layer”.
EMC’s aim is to help users manage their data more intelligently
and provide innovation and professional services, said
McDonald.
Galen Schreck, senior analyst at Forrester Research, said, “EMC
has laid out its vision of an infrastructure built on virtualised
hardware resources that will run the next generation of
service-oriented applications.”
The acquired technologies cover storage and information, with
Legato and Documentum respectively. EMC has also added
virtualisation (VMware), virtualisation automation (Akimbi),
end-to-end service monitoring (Smarts), datacentre management
(Layers), and security and policy management (RSA). RSA is the only
acquisition that has not been finalised yet.
“EMC now has all the ingredients for a software portfolio that
neatly parallels its vision of a service oriented infrastructure,”
said Schreck.
As a result, EMC will eventually offer users an alternative to
systems management tools from the likes of BMC, HP and IBM.
However, EMC has not yet integrated RSA security technology, and
the virtualisation automation technology from Akimbi currently
serves test and not production environments. Schreck estimated it
would take EMC a minimum of two years to integrate the components
it had acquired.
“EMC will need to centralise its configuration data and work on
ways to simplify and automate the process of building complete
services that span storage, servers, and applications,” he
said.
Meanwhile, EMC needs to use RSA to unify security and policy
management across its product line, from hardware like the Centera
to Documentum’s document management in order to provide users with
the ability to secure their data using RSA’s identity, access
management and key encryption software.
EMC’s information management strategy has been given the
thumbs-up from users, but better product integration is needed.
The Open University is one major user that has implemented
multiple EMC brands, including Storage (San discs and Centera
Content Addressed Storage), Legato Networker software, and
DiscXtender and EmailXtender, which it is yet to use. The
university is also a long-term user of VMware virtualisation and
RSA security tokens.
It uses Documentum Content Server 5.3, for which it has 600,000
licences. It is also in the design phase for eRooms Enterprise 7.2,
an online collaboration platform, which it plans to roll out in
October or November to 5,000 internal staff.
Jed Cawthorne, enterprise content management programme manager
at the Open University, said the products “appear to be reasonably
well integrated, but getting better all the time.” For example, the
university is currently investigating swapping its EMC EmailXtender
licences for the newly integrated Documentum Archiving for
Email.
Competitive upgrades are available. EMC offered the university a
competitive trade-in to swap its Sun Microsystems fibre channel
discs for EMC San storage.
Cawthorne said his main concern was “the speed with which the
[product integration] process can be executed. All businesses that
go on buying sprees then have to contend with integrating their new
acquisitions.
“This is by no means unique to EMC. Thus it will be interesting
to watch how quickly they bring Captiva, RSA and other recent
acquisitions fully on board.”
WHSmith News is also an EMC and VMware user, with a mixture of
DMX-2000s, Clariion CX700s, the EMC Nas Gateway, NS700G and
EMC/Brocade switches, as well as EMC Legato Networker. It also uses
both of VMware’s virtualisation platforms, ESX and GSX.
Robert Wilson, CTO at WHSmith News, said the firm uses EMC
ControlCenter to monitor and control the storage components within
the datacentre.
It uses the Clariion and DMX storage systems and Legato software
to form its information lifecycle management system.
It has a purchasing agreement called EMC Openscale, which
enables it to increase disc capacity at a known cost when required.
Wilson said EMC needed to continue to focus on its core storage
technology.
“With EMC’s recent forays down the acquisition route, and their
appetite to expand their software portfolio, repositioning
themselves as information providers, EMC should not take their eye
off their core competency as a primary storage vendor,” he
said.
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