EMC, Hitachi Highlight Information Life-cycle Management Plans

ORLANDO—Storage administrators will soon become "the owner of knowledge" within their enterprises, EMC Corp.s Mark Lewis, executive vice president of open software operations, said Tuesday here at the Storage Networking World show.

Storage vendors are moving the spotlight towards information life-cycle management this week. In addition to EMC, Hitachi Data Systems also made annoucements on forthcoming products.

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According to Lewis, this change will happen as businesses adopt a multitiered approach to information life-cycle management (ILM), with many having already taken the first step of networking their storage.

The ILM strategy Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC involves its recent acquisitions of Legato Systems Inc. and Documentum Inc. Abstractly, Lewis said, ILM is "a strategy for proactive management of information. It is not a piece of software, it is not an array. It is a process."

EMC spent $1.7 billion on Documentums content management wares. Read more about the deal here.

However, acceptance may take a while, Lewis noted, adding that it could be "a ways off, a couple of years maybe, maybe more," before real ILM becomes commonplace industry-wide. "We believe ILM truly will save a lot of money in your storage environments," he told attendees in the packed ballroom.

"They get it. This is what its about, business-driven upgrades," said Scot Barne, vice president of IT infrastructure and operations at Simon Property Group Inc., in Indianapolis. The company currently has Documentums software running on legacy Compaq Computer Corp. storage. He said he was impressed by Lewiss expression of EMCs vision and would examine the strategy more fully.

Meanwhile, EMC rival Hitachi Data Systems has a related ILM plan, explained Ken Beaudry, senior vice president and general manager of global solutions services for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based division of Tokyos Hitachi Ltd. The group announced this week that it will resell Munich-based IXOS Software AGs content management software. Hitachi is also licensing CIM (Common Information Model) software from Burlington, Mass., startup AppIQ Inc., officials said at the show this week.

In an interview with eWEEK Tuesday, Beaudry said the deal had been in the works as far back as six months ago. Software developed jointly by the companies will be available by the end of this year, he said.

Open Text this month acquired content management software vendor IXOS Software. Find out more about the deal and Open Texts plans for the program.