CA, Sony to Fuse Storage Lines

Computer Associates International and Sony have agreed to bundle their complementary storage products in order to attack mid-range and enterprise storage markets where IBM , VERITAS , and many others compete.

Islandia, N.Y.’s CA said it would bundle its BrightStor storage management line with Sony’s PetaSite and StorStation storage systems for the North American, European, Japanese, and Asian markets. The companies plan to pay special attention to vertical markets, such as healthcare and finance, where regulations such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) in the healthcare industry and the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in the financial world require companies to retain records for specific periods of time.

The global alliance, financial terms of which were not made public, was announced at CA World in Las Vegas, where the titular firm unveiled scads of new products to beef up its management software regimen.

With the Sony partnership, CA would seem to be better positioned to take on other, larger storage systems vendors such as EMC
, IBM, and HP in terms of offering complete data backup solutions for enterprise customers. Though they may not have the longstanding brand recognition as a true systems provider, CA is emphasizing security as a selling point.

“Customers continue to seek storage solutions to safeguard their valuable data without excessive cost or excessive administration,” said Frank Yang, CA senior vice president of BrightStor Solutions. “Together, CA and Sony will provide products that fulfill these ongoing market requirements.”

As part of the first fruits of the CA/Sony relationship, CA will soon ship its BrightStor ARCserve Backup technology with Sony’s StorStation Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT) WORM technology to provide customers in healthcare, surveillance, and financial industries with secure data management products.

The products will enable customers to establish long-term protection for their backups and archives, while also satisfying government regulations for electronic recordkeeping and data retention. The Sony and CA-combined WORM solutions are expected to become available in August with prices starting at about $4,500.

Sony plans to merge its PetaSite storage systems with CA’s BrightStor Enterprise Backup to provide backup consolidation solutions for data centers and enterprise storage environments. The companies also said the combination of Sony’s file servers and tape libraries with CA’s BrightStor Mobile Backup storage management software will provide backup and archival appliances for residing on laptops and desktops within the workplace.

CA and Sony also plan to form a sales team to address their combined distribution channels and establish technology validation centers in North America, Europe, and Japan.

This story originally appeared on Internet News.

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