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Instant Insight |
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EMC Announces Information Lifecycle Service Portfolio EMC has announced a set of new storage services designed to help customers plan, build, and manage an integrated information technology infrastructure. According to the company, the new services can help EMC clients cost-effectively manage and protect their business information by reducing risk and operational costs, achieving compliance, and improving availability. The new services, which will be delivered by EMC’s Technology Solutions group, are intended to accelerate the implementation of information lifecycle management (ILM). The new offerings include: ◊ ILM Workshops: Free workshops,
conducted at customer sites or at EMC, help customers understand the basics
of storage infrastructures that enable management of information from
creation through archiving or disposal. ◊ ILM Assessment Services: Help
customers validate potential benefits of ILM solutions. Assessments are
designed to be completed in four to six weeks and result in an individually
designed ILM roadmap. The services include: ♦
Application
Alignment: Evaluate a customer’s applications and data, along with
supporting technology and service levels. ♦
Recoverability
Assessment: Identify risks and exposures to mission-critical applications. ♦ Operations Assessment: Consider storage management policy, evaluate process and organizational gaps, and define a plan for operational improvement via ILM solutions. ♦ Infrastructure Assessment: Identify areas for potential cost savings via ILM-based storage consolidation and tiered architecture. ◊ Storage Managed Services provide
fixed-term, service level-driven, on-site EMC storage management options to
help customers achieve ILM. EMC identified PETCO, a
specialty retailer of pet food, supplies, and services with more than 650
stores as a client that has used EMC’s ILM service model to create and
implement a tiered storage strategy aimed at improving operational efficiency
while integrating with the company’s disaster recovery infrastructure. Using
EMC’s ILM roadmap as a guide, PETCO is implementing an advanced ILM
infrastructure based on multiple tiers of EMC
networked storage solutions and EMC open management and business continuity
software. Net/Net ILM has lately been the storage
buzzword du jour, and most all storage vendors and
their systems vendor brethren are offering some kind of ILM solution or
another. Indeed, the concept underlying ILM is sound; that the relative value
of business information changes over time, so deploying that information on
storage solutions appropriate to its relative value can save customers money
and effort over time. But like many other buzzwords, ILM suffers from a lack
of clarity on exactly what practical means are required for enterprise
customers to achieve an effective ILM end. Which is why we find EMC’s new
expanded services portfolio intriguing. By creating service offerings
specifically aimed at evaluating storage environments and identifying
appropriate ILM solutions, EMC has essentially created a mobile classroom it
can use to instruct enterprise audiences on the value of its strategic ILM
product set. While critics are likely to suggest that such a model will lean
inevitably toward defining the ILM world according to EMC’s interests, we
would reply that this is simply product marketing in its simplest and most
effective form. By schooling customers in ILM 101, EMC is building a
foundation that will support and inform their future strategic and buying
decisions. That said,
we do not expect EMC’s mobile ILM classroom to travel without hitting a few
pot holes along the way. To work effectively, ILM requires a holistic
approach to enterprise storage that is beyond the technical and financial
grasp of many organizations. In addition, while we believe ILM solutions can
enable storage efficiencies and result in financial benefits, those savings
are likely to be incremental in nature as opposed to the big ticket, short
term benefits most businesses love best. Overall, we expect that EMC’s
new ILM service offerings are likely to appeal most to enterprise customers
who are willing and able to take the long view of their storage strategies
and expenditures. Many if not most of the companies willing to take the time
and effort to enlist EMC’s assistance in evaluating their storage
infrastructures are likely to see potential benefits from deploying ILM
solutions. If those numbers are sizeable, we expect other storage vendors
will hit the pavement in their own mobile ILM classrooms. In the meantime, |