Earthlings are generating a lot (and I mean a lot) of information. In fact, according to a recent study conducted by the School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS) at the University of California, Berkeley, humankind is expected to generate more information between 2001 and 2003 than was created in the previous 300,000 years combined.
So how much information is a lot? Well, according to the information folks at Berkeley in 2001 Earthlings generated 6 exabytes (EB) of information. That’s one billion megabytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. And, if all that information were stored on diskettes, the stack would be over 2,000 miles high – which is about the distance between New York City and Denver, Colorado. In 2002, Earthlings are expected to generate 12 exabytes (EB) of information. So, it is obvious that we Earthlings can generate a heck of a lot of data – the problem is do we have safe, secure, and reliable places to store it?
EMC
EMC Corporation, a Hopkinton, MA-based firm specializing in information storage systems, knows all about having safe, secure, and reliable places to store data. Ford Motor Company recently implemented an advanced information protection system using EMC Enterprise Storage, business continuity and management software, and EMC Global Services to reduce the recovery time of hundreds of terabytes of business-critical information from days to hours. In addition, Burger King Corporation is standardizing on EMC’s Symmetrix and CLARiiON networked storage to make sales information more readily available for its new global business intelligence aimed at enhancing satisfaction for its 12-million daily customers.
SDMS provides comprehensive, end-to-end management of data migration process
EMC’s Symmetrix Data Migration Services (SDMS) is designed to provide comprehensive, end-to-end management of an organization’s entire data migration process including planning, implementation, and post-migration reporting and testing. According to Paul Ross, EMC’s director of network storage, SDMS virtually eliminates the pain associated with migrating data. SDMS also allows organizations to migrate mainframe data from non-EMC storage as well as from EMC Symmetrix systems. According to Mike O’Malley, a spokesperson for EMC, the Symmetrix system is multi-generational. “The system had a great architecture coming out of the gate and we.ve had years to make it more robust, ” says O’Malley. “Symmetrix is almost like an insurance policy for organizations and it delivers the world’s highest information storage capacity in a single system . 69.5 terabytes,” continued O’Malley.
TimeFinder soothes data center pain points
Another EMC product is TimeFinder – an application designed to soothe data center pain points while maintaining maximum information availability. Ross says that EMC’s TimeFinder application allows organizations to create, in background mode, independently addressable Business Continuous Volumes (BCVs) for mainframe, UNIX, and Windows NT information storage. The BCVs are local mirror images of active production volumes that can be used to run simultaneous tasks in parallel with one another. This parallel processing capability offers workload comprehension allowing organizations to significantly increase efficiency and productivity while maintaining continuous support for the production needs of the company. In addition, EMC’s Control Center Replication Manager is designed to discover, catalogue, coordinate, and automate the functionality of disk replication technologies such as TimeFinder.
Emphasis on a close partnership with storage vendors
The results of a recent in-depth study conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC), showed that both new and established companies emphasized the importance of a close partnership with their storage vendors. This was a surprise to the analysts who conducted the study as they expected the discussions to focus on the software, services, and hardware features of the storage.
Galileo, a global distribution business that processes nearly one-third of the worlds travel reservations, emphasized the importance of its information storage partnership. “We have no business without storage,” says Frank Auer, vice president of operations. “Everything in the office can be replaced, but if I loose data, I am out of business.” O’Malley says that EMC’s services are designed to make sure its customers do not have to worry about storage. “We want our customers to focus on their business, not worry about data storage,” says O’Malley. And, in order to ensure that this happens, EMC has invested more than $1-billion in its E-Lab facilities, with 1.6 petabytes of storage dedicated to the testing required to ensure interoperability in multi-vendor storage networks.
EMC supports its customers by combining remote service technology with a 24 x 7 commitment of skilled service teams. O’Malley says EMC uses the latest diagnostic technology including telecommunications links that continuously monitor and report on the status of each installed system. “The built-in service approach is designed to detect errors before a data unavailability condition occurs, ” says O.Malley.
EMC beginnings
Richard Egan and Roger Marino (the “E” and “M” in EMC) founded the company in 1979 as a supplier of add-on memory boards. However, by 1989 the company was becoming immersed into the global information storage market. In 1990, EMC introduced its Symmetrix product line specifically designed to provide storage systems based on an array of small, commodity hard disk drives for the mainframe market. In 1995, the company extended its market reach to create the first platform-dependent storage system that is capable of simultaneously supporting all the major computer operating systems. In 1999, EMC acquired Data General Corporation and integrated CLARiiON (a line of midrange information storage systems) into the EMC product family. By the time 2000 rolled around, O’Malley says the company introduced the Symmetrix 8000 line which runs EMC’s most advanced information management software. And, 2000 was also the year that EMC decided to focus on the growing trend toward networked information storage. O’Malley says that an EMC Enterprise Storage Network (ESN) enables customers to weave together heterogeneous storage, switches, hubs, and servers into a single, easily managed information infrastructure. To date, EMC has tested and qualified interoperability between its storage systems and nearly 400 server models, 40 operating systems, 81 storage software products, 145 networking elements and 1,200 devices ranging from HBAs and drivers to switches and tape subsystems.
Revenue from information storage software in 2000 was over $1.44 billion, up 75 percent from 1999. According to O.Malley, EMC’s revenues have grown from $190 million in 1990 to nearly $9-billion in 2000.
Corporate Address
EMC Corporation
Hopkinton, MA USA 01748-9103
Tel: 508-435-1000
http://www.emc.com
Number of Employees:
Worldwide 23,100
Non-U.S. 8,500
U.S. 14,600
Massachusetts 8,700
Stock Information
The company’s stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EMC and is a component of the S&P 500 Index.
Manufacturing Facilities
Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland
Franklin, Massachusetts, USA
Hopkinton, Massachusetts, USA
Milford, Massachusetts, USA
Apex, North Carolina, USA
Research and Development Facilities
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Hopkinton, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Milford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, U.S.A.
La Celle St. Cloud, France
Tel Aviv, Israel
Revenues
Most Recent Quarter (3Rd Quarter 2001)
Revenues: $1.21 billion
Net Loss: $270 million or $0.12 per share*
Fiscal Year ending December 2000
Revenues: $8.87 billion
Income: $1.78 billion
* During the 3rd quarter of 2001, EMC also took pre-tax restructuring charge of $825 million, or an additional loss of $.31 per share.
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