HOPKINTON, Mass., July 16 -- EMC Corp., the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today introduced the EMC Rainfinity File Management Appliance (FMA) designed to help organizations lower storage management costs and implement automated file archiving policies across heterogeneous server and network-attached storage (NAS) environments.

EMC Rainfinity Global File Virtualization is the leading file virtualization solution in use on the market according to the Wave 8 Storage Management Fortune 1000 Report, a research survey of Fortune 1000 CIOs conducted by TheInfoPro, a leading independent IT research network.

The Rainfinity FMA provides easy-to-use wizards that enable IT managers to set up automated file management policies that transparently move and place files across NAS tiers including archiving directly to content addressed storage (CAS) such as the market-leading EMC Centera platform. FMA automatically identifies and archives static files based on customizable policies to lower total cost of ownership, streamline backup and recovery and address governance and compliance requirements with EMC Centera. Together, Rainfinity FMA and EMC Centera provide the single-instance and data retention capabilities that greatly enhance the effectiveness of transparent file archiving to improve access and reduce overall storage requirements.

"Our customers are demanding a new way to manage their fast growing file environments," said Jamie Shepard, vice president of technology solutions at International Computerware Inc., a global information technology services and systems integration firm. "The Rainfinity File Management Appliance provides immediate benefits and serves as an entry point for file virtualization."

"The new Rainfinity File Management Appliance builds on EMC's file virtualization leadership, offering customers an excellent entry point to introduce file virtualization into their environments through a light-weight, simple solution," said Mike Karp, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates. "The Rainfinity FMA is capable of delivering immediate benefits that can help storage administrators automate key tasks in the file management lifecycle."

Rainfinity FMA offers high availability, scalability and flexibility advantages by employing a hybrid approach with a file archiving solution that can extend a Global Namespace to support file level granularity without requiring agents, without introducing a single point of failure or a potential performance bottleneck. While Rainfinity FMA is a dedicated appliance, the File Management Application is also a key component of the EMC Rainfinity Global File Virtualization platform. Rainfinity FMA serves as an entry point for a complete file virtualization solution designed to optimize all enterprise file content including active and inactive data.

"The explosive growth of unstructured data has accelerated the need to simplify and control the rising cost of file system management. The EMC Rainfinity File Management Appliance optimizes primary NAS storage by automatically moving inactive files based on policies to less expensive secondary and archive-level storage tiers," said Mark Lewis, EMC executive vice president and chief development officer. "File archiving enables organizations to gain optimal value and use of tiered storage, helping drive down file system management costs, while supporting other key business requirements such as compliance and retention. Rainfinity FMA is the first step in a complete file virtualization strategy that balances storage utilization while providing a single view across multiple servers, NAS and CAS devices."

EMC Rainfinity's file virtualization architecture is safe, scalable, easy to deploy, and based on open standards and APIs. FMA key features include:

• Policy-based file management supports flexible rules for inclusion and exclusion (e.g., location, age, size, name, etc.).

• Preview mode to review the impact of file placement policies.

• Automated file movement and retrieval across primary and secondary storage tiers.

• Supports multiple sources and destinations and integrates with Network Appliance, EMC Celerra, and EMC Centera.

• Restores stub files and identifies and addresses orphan files.

• Interoperates with snapshots, backup/recovery, anti-virus, and Rainfinity's NAS virtualization functionality.

• Automatically resolves name conflicts.

• Easily upgradeable to the full Rainfinity Global File Virtualization solution.

EMC Rainfinity file virtualization solutions are deployed at global customer sites in major industries including automotive, aerospace, biotech, education, health care, manufacturing, technology and financial services -- including four of the top five U.S. banks. More information can be found at www.EMC.com/rainfinity.

About EMC

EMC Corp. is the world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.emc.com.

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Source: EMC Corp.