EMC Upgrades Hardware; Partner, Dell, Aims At Enterprise

EMC Corp. has unveiled comprehensive hardware upgrades across its entire line. At the same time, EMC's partner, Dell Computer, announced upgrades to its EMC-based storage products that demonstrate Dell's growing commitment to enterprise computing.

EMC's announcements ranged from network attached storage (NAS) and high-end storage to mid-tier storage and software upgrades. "This fits into EMC's plan to present an overall umbrella of information lifecycle management (ILM)," said David Hill, vice president of Storage Research at the Aberdeen Group. "This is probably the widest announcement EMC has ever made."

Hill said the Dell announcement represents a demonstration that the two firms are committed to "driving functionality downstream from the data center to the work group." He noted that much of the new software announced Monday is being offered on lower range systems. He said his analysis of the products indicated that Dell and EMC seem to be working to keep their revenues stable while driving performance higher.

He pointed to EMC's upgrade of it Symmetrix DMX Series as appealing to many large enterprise users. Regarding that series, EMC said: "Cumulative enhancements to the Symmetrix DMX Series deliver up to twice the performance of the initial Symmetrix DMX Series introduced just 12 months ago."

EMC covered all the bases in its announcement. In addition to the upgrade to its Symmetrix family, the company beefed up its CLARiiON CX, Celerra, and Centera systems.