EMC tackles growing SMB storage needs

As small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) save more data and rely on it more,
they are turning to networked storage even under the burden of limited budgets
and IT expertise.

Regulatory requirements, more sophisticated applications and reliance on Web-based
supply chains all are forcing small businesses to collect and store more information,
according to IDC analyst Rick
Villars. They may not have enough data to fill an enterprise-class storage system
today, but they want systems that let them add more capacity as they grow, he
said.

EMC is aiming at this growing
market with its Clariion AX4, a platform that can scale from a few terabytes
of storage to 60T bytes and take advantage of many advanced EMC storage management
applications designed for large enterprises. The company was set to announce
and ship it Tuesday.

Swervepoint, a provider
of promotional gifts in Middleton, Massachusetts, has less than 1T byte of data
between its two locations but wants to be able to add storage capacity without
buying new servers.

"We should buy our servers for the server qualities and buy storage for
our server needs," said Kevin Phoenix, principal in charge of operations
and administration.

The 15-employee company's main concerns about networked storage are cost and
complexity, and the AX4 eased those worries, Phoenix said. Swervepoint, which
counts EMC as one of its own clients, has been a beta tester of the AX4 and
purchased a unit. It came with management software that was easy to use, said
Phoenix, who said he handles IT for the company but is not an IT specialist.

The AX4 comes with at least 3T bytes of storage and can be expanded by stringing
together as many as five systems with 12 drives each. Each AX4 can be ordered
with either a Fibre Channel or a iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface)
connection, meeting demand for IP (Internet Protocol) connectivity among SMBs,
according to Barry Ader, senior director of Clariion marketing at EMC. Smaller
companies tend not to have expertise with Fibre Channel, which is typically
used in large enterprises, he said. On the AX4, there is no price difference
between the two interface options.

The systems will come with 750G-byte drives at first, but 1T-byte drives will
be available starting in March, opening the door to the AX4's top-end storage
capacity of 60T bytes, Ader said. Within the full AX4 system and even within
each enclosure, users can mix and match SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) and SATA
(Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drives. Companies can use management
tools including snapshot, failover, business continuity and Microsoft Exchange
replication capability with the AX4.

By mixing SAS and SATA drives, users can set up a tiered storage system in
which the more critical data is on better-performing, more expensive SAS drives
and less critical on lower-performance SATA disks, said Charles King, an analyst
at Pund-IT. Support for
enterprise-class software is another benefit of the AX4, which goes up against
SMB storage products from competitors including Network
Appliance and EqualLogic,
King said. In particular, its support for virtualization software from EMC's
VMware
subsidiary appears to be stronger than in competing products, King said.