LMC presents first ILM proof-of-concept in AP

By Heinz Bulos
November 2003

SINGAPORL - LMC Corporation, together with business partner NCS Pte. Ltd., uneiled
in a South Asia press conerence last week the irst proo-o-concept o its inormation
liecycle management, or ILM, strategy in the region.

In a demo presented to the press, NCS oicials showcased an e-mail archial setup as its
ILM proo-o-concept. 1he inrastructure integrated more than ten applications in a multi-
platorm, multi-endor enironment. Using a Microsot Lxchange,Lotus Notes
enironment inoling LMC CLARiiON SAN ,storage area network, and Centera CAS
,content-address storage, solution with third party applications such as Legato L-mail
Lxtender and IXOS Solution, the setup demonstrated a real-world application o the ILM
concept, showing how e-mail archies can be automatically moed to arious storage
systems throughout its liecycle.

NCS is the largest systems integrator in Singapore, with 14 locations in 6 countries across
Asia Paciic. It`s also the only Gold LMC Channel Partner in South Asia since 2000.

LMC is showcasing the demo to proe that ILM is not just a concept but a strategy that can
already be implemented by organizations, albeit only a per-application basis. 1he company is
encouraging its customers to moe through three phases towards enterprise-wide ILM. 1ony
Marzulli, LMC`s Vice President or Open Sotware, explained during the press conerence
that the irst step is to moe to an automated networked tiered storage enironment. 1he
second phase is to deploy application-speciic ILM by deining business policies or arious
inormation types and ILM components into principal applications. 1he inal step is
enterprise-wide ILM, wherein ILM is implemented across applications, complete and
integrated within the entire heterogeneous I1 inrastructure.

ILM solutions today
In a one-on-one interiew ater the presentation, Marzulli clariied that true` ILM, that is,
enterprise-wide ILM, is still down the road. Like anything, not just ILM, but any kind o
technology or any kind o solution goes through phases and eolution. It`s an iteratie
process. It`s kind o saying Are we there yet` and you`re neer quite there yet. It`s an
ongoing journey.`

le stressed, But I think or us, the act that we can delier solutions today is an absolute
competitie adantage or us and or our customers. And we will always continue to
integrate new applications and new capabilities into the ILM strategy. So as new ways o
proiding inormation occurs, we will hae to ind new ways to storing it, retrieing it,
replicating it, and managing it. As to when we`ll be done, I think we hae a heck o a head
start right now and we will delier great solutions all o next year around ILM and help our
customers migrate their enironments to the true ILM ramework to which the beneit to
them is lower oerall costs and better use o their inormation.`

Marzulli pointed out that components o ILM, though not complete, are already existing and
customers can already beneit rom its alue. At the end o the day, it`s proing to
customers that matters. Any endor can say anything they want but ultimately you hae to
delier. \hat we`re ocused on is deliering solutions and by deliering them today and not
waiting, we can actually proe the alue o ILM to our customers today. In addition, we
think we`re the most uniquely qualiied in the industry to do so because o our heritage-
we`re ocused on storage, both on the platorm and sotware leel. I think we hae a ar
greater capability than our competitors. 1hose people that we compete with that are
hardware-oriented, they hae many other businesses besides storage. 1hose that come at a
purely sotware perspectie, they don`t hae the beneit o understanding a true hardware
perspectie. \e hae the best o both worlds. And we hae that unique lens on the industry.
1o actually be able to delier real solutions today, we think it`s a signiicant adantage or us
and or our customers.`

le added that LMC is ready now because it can take o solutions such as e-mail archiing
and compliance conditions or databases. Just being able to hae a complete end-to-end set
o choices or tiered storage, rom a high-end Symmetrix down to A1A and Centera product
line-we`re the only ones that can proide that breadth o solution set just to handle the
tiering aspect o where you put the inormation. Is there more work to be done Sure, but
we think we hae a great start already.`

Software portfolio
One tool that is missing to achiee enterprise-wide ILM are metadata engines, which are data
about data. \e beliee that a metadata repository is an important ingredient to managing
this entire inrastructure. 1o a certain degree, we already hae some o that already built
because o the way the ControlCenter works, our management sotware. But we beliee that
metadata properly needs to coer the entire inrastructure o a data center and so we`re
working in that area,` Marzulli explained

At present, LMC has tools such as StorageScope, a network storage crawler that proides
statistics on utilization and the like, LRM, which controls all replications and backups, and
ARM, which does some o the data mobility aspects o ILM.

\e hae done a lot o work with our own products,` said Marzulli, or sotware,
platorms, and serices-along with Legato beore they were acquired by us-because they
were a business partner. So we did some work already in that area. Similarly to that end, we
worked with Documentum. So that already allowed us to bring solutions to the marketplace
rather quickly. In addition, we hae other business partners that we will work with in this
area to continue to round up the portolio o solutions.`

LMC recently bought Legato Systems, Inc., a backup, recoery and ILM sotware company
or >1.3 billion and is in the process o completing its acquisition o Documentum, Inc., a
content management sotware irm or >1. billion. 1ogether with its own sotware tools,
LMC has a more complete set o enterprise storage resource management, storage
inrastructure, data management, and content management sotware portolio. Marzulli said,
It is a ery complete picture. 1here are other areas o interest or us that we will continue to
explore. 1hose areas are things that we`ll either build, or partner, or acquire. Right now, we
hae a lot on our plate to digest Legato and Documentum to make sure that that`s working.`
le also said that the company has plans o consolidating its dozens o sotware brands into
a core handul soon.

Customer response
Marzulli expressed optimism on the market`s response to the ILM strategy. Our customers
are ery enthused about it. 1his message around ILM resonates with our customers. \e`re
getting ery positie eedback. \e`re getting customers who want to begin the process
immediately.`

In Asia Paciic, where many companies continue to use tape to backup data, Marzulli said
they`re beginning to look at storage costs rom a dierent perspectie. 1he discussion we`re
haing with our customers here is tape because the irst question that people say is But tape
is so much cheaper than disk, een cheap disk.`, and the short answer is \ou`re right, it is,
but what is the cost o an outage in terms o the system is down and you need to recoer`
1he time to recoery becomes a much more important discussion, not the act that your
backup tapes are cheaper. low we`re raming the discussion with our customers and our
customers are responding to this positiely is: \hat is your recoery time objectie low
quickly do you need to bring the business back And tape takes a long time. I you need to
restore your Microsot Lxchange Serer rom tape, that`s a big process. I you can recoer
rom disk rom a snapshot that you just took, that`s instantaneous. And that`s a dierent
discussion. So when we talk about the total cost o what it takes or an outage and to recoer
rom that outage, then that`s a dierent equation that customers understand. \hat we`e
seen in the region is that customers are receptie to that discussion.`