This time in '99: EMC unveils storage area network range

Storage giant, EMC has moved into the storage area networking (SAN) market with the European launch of a raft of products for large-scale enterprise systems.

SAN, which is based on fibre channel networks, allows high-speed interconnection of back-up devices over distributed locations, and acts as a separate computer network.

EMC chief executive, Mike Ruettgers, told Silicon.com why he thinks SAN is what IT managers want. "More and more of our target audience is interested in consolidating all the data that has been distributed back into the data centre. It is a trend we have seen in all the surveys we have done. One that we did here in Europe just six months ago found that 93 per cent of companies surveyed want to consolidate back in," he said.

EMC's Enterprise Storage Network range includes software and connectivity products as well as support. The company claims this will help companies manage their data back-up and retrieval more effectively.

Ruettgers also gave a word of warning to IT managers about their future storage needs. "The amount of information that is going to be stored on NT is growing rapidly and if they [IT managers] don't have plans to protect that the same way they do the mainframe or Unix, then they're going to be in trouble."