NEWS BRIEFS

Hopkinton, MASS. — In a landmark development that redefines the business value of information, CNT, a global specialist in storage networking solutions, and EMC Corporation, a world leader in information storage, announced the world’s first implementation of true data mirroring between the United States and Europe. P&O Nedlloyd Container Line Limited, one of the world’s three largest container carriers, achieved this milestone by moving data between its U.S.- and U.K.-based data centers over the firm’s private IP network using EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF) software and groundbreaking IP networking technology from CNT.

The SRDF over IP data replication solution is a hardware-software- networking offering developed jointly by EMC and CNT. Unlike conventional data copying solutions, which require the use of host-based computing resources, SRDF over IP requires no host involvement in the mirroring operation, making it the world’s most efficient data replication and information protection solution.

Taking advantage of the P&O Nedlloyd’s existing IP-based intranet, the EMC/CNT SRDF over IP solution electronically mirrors data and applications from P&O Nedlloyd’s East Rutherford, N.J., site to its London site, lowering the cost and complexity of sharing and protecting information around the globe.

The SRDF over IP capability combines EMC’s market-leading SRDF software with CNT’s UltraNet Storage Director storage networking solution. It enables the automatic mirroring of files, databases and applications between geographically separated EMC Symmetrix enterprise storage systems over secure, but frequently underutilized, private IP networks. By tapping into the existing IP-based networking infrastructure, which today is used in virtually every large enterprise, SRDF over IP helps customers accelerate, simplify and optimize business-critical information processes and resources in innovative, cost-effective ways.

“P&O Nedlloyd’s strategy for success emphasizes smart operations, product enhancements, and IT-based improvements. Consolidating our U.S.-based data centers to our London location has enabled us to further enhance the efficiency of our IT operations.” said Bob Post, IT general manager at P&O Nedlloyd. “Utilizing the EMC/CNT SRDF over IP capability has made this such a time- and cost-effective exercise that we’re looking forward to using the solution for future data migration projects.”

“The Internet continues to grow by leaps and bounds, making new applications business-critical. The struggle now is to support continuous business operations – all systems running at all hours of the day, every day,” said Nick Ganio, group vice president of worldwide sales, marketing and services at CNT. “Delivering storage networking applications such as data mirroring over wide area networks, especially IP networks, is an important step in the SAN evolution. And partnerships like EMC and CNT’s will be critical in delivering the technological advances to keep pace with the needs of leaders like P&O Nedlloyd.”

“P&O Nedlloyd is pioneering a trend that transcends oceans and continents,” said Mike Ruffolo, EMC’s Executive Vice President of Global Sales, Services and Marketing. “As EMC and CNT help change the economics and reach of bandwidth, we’ll enable our joint customers to find new ways to build information systems geared to worldwide use. In the end, far-away resources will seem near. Data centers on the other side of the country – or planet for that matter – will perform like they’re in the cubicle next door.”

The EMC/CNT SRDF over IP solution is ideally suited for applications requiring localized processing, speedy information access and remote data replication. For example, when customers need to deploy mirrored Web sites, refresh data warehouses or migrate entire suites of applications and databases, SRDF over IP creates copies of the data and, using innovative encapsulation/decapsulation technology from CNT, securely transmits the copies over the high-bandwidth IP network to the remote Symmetrix system. There, the data can be leveraged to generate additional revenue based on local business opportunities, as well as protect vital enterprise applications from planned and unplanned outages.

P&O Nedlloyd Container Line Limited, was formed in December 1996, as a 50:50 joint venture of P&O and Royal Nedlloyd, representing the liner shipping interests of the two companies. It is one of the three largest container carriers world-wide, with routes connecting all parts of the globe and a yearly turnover of around US$ 4 billion. For more information, visit http://www.ponl.com

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