Legato Systems Announces Breakthrough Vision for the Future of Storage Area Networks
Legato Systems Outlines the Information Utility, Announces Strategic Partnerships, and Demonstrates Storage Area Network (SAN) Solutions
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 2, 1999-- At a worldwide press conference held today, Legato Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:LGTO - news), a leader in the enterprise storage management software market, detailed its roadmap and partnerships designed to advance storage networking toward the vision of the Information Utility.
''Our enterprise customers rely on their information systems just as much as they rely on their electrical and telephone systems,'' said Lou Cole, chief executive officer of Legato Systems, Inc. ''Those utilities provide seamless, uninterrupted access to their services, managed in a way that is transparent to the customer. Similarly, Legato's storage management products will enable Storage Area Networks to provide uninterrupted availability of data, managed in a way that is transparent to the user, thus creating the Information Utility.''
The Information Utility will enable enterprises to achieve robust data protection, high data accessibility, and continuous operations in SAN environments. These benefits will be provided through the application of efficient resource utilization, service level availability management, SAN-based data movement, and self-healing storage techniques in a policy-managed framework. Legato's announcement today outlined products, initiatives, and partnerships aimed at achieving these benefits in three important stages.
''Compaq plans to incorporate Legato's solutions to support the Compaq Enterprise Network Storage Architecture (ENSA), which makes storage a more flexible, shared resource throughout an enterprise,'' said Darren Thomas, vice president of the Multi-Vendor Business Unit of Compaq Computer Corporation's Storage Products Division. ''Compaq is a leader in the market with high-performance, fully configured SAN storage solutions. By working together with partners such as Legato, we offer fully automated SAN solutions that give customers the ability to achieve increasing levels of return from storage in heterogeneous environment.''
''CLARiiON and Legato are working closely together to deliver backup and recover solutions that will deliver uninterrupted access to data and applications,'' said Mark Vargo, director of solutions marketing at CLARiiON. ''This alliance can help customers realize benefits from their SAN implementation in a much shorter timeframe.''
In the first stage, fairly simple SAN environments are created to solve specific storage management problems, such as more efficient use of network resources and management of application availability. For these customers, Legato NetWorker today can provide LAN-free backup for mission-critical database and application servers, with Legato SmartMedia® providing the added benefit of dynamic sharing of tape drives across heterogeneous environments. Customers ready to deploy these advanced capabilities can be assured of interoperability with SAN hardware through the Legato SAN Ready program. In addition, FullTime Cluster(TM) provides the ability to manage application service levels, giving administrators the flexibility to minimize both planned and unplanned system downtime.
''The combination of FullTime Cluster and FullTime Data with Legato's enterprise storage management products brings unequaled management capabilities to SAN environments today,'' said Dave Malmstedt, senior vice president of worldwide operations at FullTime Software. ''As we work together to fully exploit SAN capabilities, we will enable our customers to fully realize the incredible potential that storage networking brings for improving their business processes.''
As SANs begin to mature and customers begin to deploy more complex storage networks with increasingly intelligent storage devices, the need for more efficient use of server resources and transparent management of data protection processes will arise. Legato is addressing this evolution by replacing the ''host-centric'' storage management model with a ''storage network-centric'' model. Legato will employ the Celestra(TM) architecture, which provides the industry's first true server-less backup for the SAN market, gained in last week's acquisition of Intelliguard Software. Celestra enables new applications, such as server-less backup, SAN-based file replication and mirroring, and transparent Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM). Legato will work with other leading SAN vendors to deliver these capabilities on intelligent storage platforms, creating key products to manage the Information Utility.
''Celestra has reached the marketplace precisely as the market for data movers is exploding,'' said George Wilson, chief executive officer of Intelliguard Software. ''Celestra will help optimize Fibre Channel-based Storage Area Networks -- and help move this advanced technology further into the enterprise, delivering the benefits of standards-based, 'server-less' technology to the heterogeneous environments of Fortune 2000 corporations. This is a huge and growing opportunity. There are 300,000 corporate sites with over 200 gigabytes of storage capacity, and the market for data movers is substantially larger.''
Finally, as SANs mature further, proactive management techniques will be required to ensure SAN scalability and fully realize the potential of the Information Utility. The self-healing storage capabilities of Legato GEMS will be extended to the management of the SAN network infrastructure. This will provide a policy-managed framework for the management of both the SAN infrastructure and the data contained in the SAN, giving administrators unprecedented control over the quality of service provided by the storage network.
Providing comprehensive SAN solutions will require industry leaders to work closely together. Today, Legato also announced strategic partnerships with CLARiiON, the Advanced Storage Division of Data General Corporation [NYSE:DGN - news], a leading supplier of disk arrays for the open systems market, and with Brocade Communications, the leader in the Fibre Channel switch market. Like previously announced relationships with 3Com Corporation and MTI, and StorageTek and Box Hill, these partnerships are aimed at developing and bringing to market solutions required by customers who are deploying SANs to improve their business and data management processes. Refer to separate announcements, ''CLARiiON and Legato Systems Join Forces to Speed the Deployment of SANs'' and ''Brocade and Legato Systems Partner to Offer Integrated Storage Network Management,'' for more information on these exciting strategic partnerships.
Legato also announced today that it has joined the FibreAlliance as a charter member. Sponsored by EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC - news), the FibreAlliance is a consortium of twelve Fibre Channel hardware and management leaders. The goal of the FibreAlliance is to establish standard methods for management of Fibre Channel-based SANs.
''Legato's product initiatives continually improve the data protection, data availability, and operational transparency of our customers' environments,'' said Nora M. Denzel, senior vice president at Legato Systems, Inc. ''Legato's concept of an Information Utility takes early SAN solutions to the next level, where fault tolerant storage operations ensure that management of storage is fully automated and policy-driven for maximum customer return on their storage investment. Legato is committed to developing solutions that conform with industry standards, ensuring interoperability for our customers.''
''We have witnessed explosive data growth as the Internet has become critical to daily business operations throughout the world,'' said Chris Gnanakone, president and chief executive officer, at SeaLink Information Technologies, Inc. ''Legato's concept of the Information Utility provides end users improved access to this data across their organization. This is critical to our e-commerce applications. We look forward to seeing the SAN products that will bring the benefits of the Information Utility to our business.''
''The vision of enterprise SANs, providing universal access to data, is solid and becoming a reality for the distributed network. Underlying this robust storage network architecture is a sophisticated management infrastructure comprising data movement, access, sharing, performance, data protection, disaster tolerance, and quality of service,'' said Michael Peterson, president of Strategic Research Corporation, Santa Barbara, California. ''The strategy and roadmap that Legato is announcing today will provide that sophisticated management, exploiting the intelligence that will be distributed throughout the storage network, and enabling customers to achieve the benefits of the Information Utility.''
Legato Certified SAN Solutions
Attendees at today's worldwide press conference also viewed live demonstrations of Legato SAN solutions, featuring LAN-free backup and restore in a heterogeneous environment, with Windows NT and UNIX hosts connected to a tape library using Legato NetWorker Power Edition and Legato SmartMedia. Demonstrations also included remote SAN backup, using Legato NetWorker Power Edition backing up data via Fibre Channel bridged over ATM; FullTime Cluster failover, with load-balancing across multiple systems in a SAN environment; and server-less backup using Intelliguard's Celestra architecture. Partners participating in these demonstrations include ADIC, ATL Products, Brocade, CLARiiON, Compaq, Computer Network Technology (CNT), Crossroads, Emulex, Exabyte, FullTime, Gadzoox, Intelliguard, JNI, MTI, QLogic, Quantum, Silicon Graphics, StorageTek, Sun, and Vixel.
Availability
For more SAN information or to obtain a whitepaper detailing Legato's vision of the Information Utility, or for more information on Legato Systems' enterprise storage management software products, please contact Legato sales via phone at 650/812-6000, or via email at sales@legato.com.
Information Utility Industry Support
''3Com and Legato share a common goal to develop open SAN infrastructures that will allow customers to realize a level of seamless integration and value currently seen in the LAN/WAN market,'' said Randy Meals, general manager for 3Com's Storage Networking Division. ''3Com welcomes Legato's Information Utility initiative, and our work together utilizing 3Com's StorageConnect Fibre Channel infrastructure products will both ensure the delivery of interoperable SAN solutions today and help move the industry towards that end.''
''Legato has recognized that SAN architecture is bringing a storage network-centric model to enterprise management, a change that will provide more efficient use of storage resources, give better data protection, and profoundly transform the way organizations use information,'' commented Bill Britts, ADIC executive vice-president of sales and marketing. ''ADIC's long cooperation with Legato means not only that Legato NetWorker, Legato SmartMedia, and the Legato GEMS product family work with ADIC Fibre Channel-ready tape libraries today, but also that our future tape storage products will integrate seamlessly into the Legato storage network model.''
''Ampex is pleased to be working with Legato to help our customers realize the vision of the Information Utility,'' said John Hennessy, director of business development at Ampex. ''One of the requirements is rapid backup of mission-critical data. Legato's implementation of Legato SmartMedia provides maximum utilization of high performance Ampex DST® backup systems, providing up to 80 MB-sec backup to each host user on a storage area network from a single fourdrive DST system, significantly reducing each critical backup window.''
''As a leader in Fibre Channel switch scalability, Ancor is excited to be part of Legato's vision for the SAN,'' said Carla Kennedy, vice president of marketing at Ancor Communications. ''Providing a single management solution across heterogeneous environments is extremely important to end users. As SANs scale to support thousands of devices in large enterprises, a seamless management tool, such as Legato's Information Utility, will be an essential component.''
''ATL Products and Legato working together as part of the Information Utility initiative, will answer customer demand for information utility solutions from desktop to datacenter,'' said Frank Berry, vice president of marketing for ATL Products. ''The combination of Legato SmartMedia and ATL's P3000 High Availability (HA) library provides consolidated, enterprise-class storage while the combination of Legato NetWorker and ATL's SAN Backup Appliances will form workgroup backup solutions that are easy to buy, easy to install, and easy to use.''
''Box Hill has been actively developing and integrating SAN solutions to provide our customers with continuous uptime, complete data protection, and improved system availability,'' said Box Hill chief executive officer, Philip Black. ''Legato's suite of storage management software, including Legato NetWorker and Legato SmartMedia are key to Box Hill's LAN-less backup solutions.''
''Brocade is pleased to support Legato's Information Utility vision,'' said Peter Tarrant, vice president of marketing and business development at Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. ''As the leading supplier of fibre channel fabric switches, enabling scalable, reliable storage area networks is our highest priority. Our partnership with Legato will help further the adoption of SANs in the enterprise market by providing resilient applications, including LAN-free backup and restore.''
''Legato's Information Utility strategy is a step towards lessening the complexities involved in integrating different technologies in a SAN environment,'' said Mark Knittel, vice president, marketing and business development at Computer Network Technology (CNT). ''CNT's UltraNet products provide dynamic any-to-any connectivity to create a SAN infrastructure where open systems technologies can be easily shared and intermixed. We're excited about partnering with software vendors such as Legato to deliver the seamless integration customers need for their heterogeneous, mission-critical SAN environments.''
''Crossroads Systems is committed to verified solutions in order to reach the highest degree of confidence for the customer when implementing a Fibre Channel Storage Area Network,'' said Bob LiVolsi, senior vice president of sales and marketing. ''Having Legato as a partner offers a tremendous opportunity for providing tested and verified products to our customers so they can solve daily problems, minimizing risk, and simplifying installations in an open systems environment.''
''The addition of FullTime Software and Intelliguard Software to the Legato suite of solutions positions Legato as the premier force in the data-centric movement,'' said Steve Howe vice president of sales at Datalink. ''Spanning high availability, SANs, and backup and recovery, Legato will play a key role in our information management deployment initiatives. Datalink is pleased to work with Legato to help enable companies deliver the power of information.''
''As SAN systems continue to be deployed for enterprise connectivity, storage management becomes a critical component,'' said Mike Smith, senior director, Fibre Channel Marketing at Emulex Corporation. ''The Legato Information Utility has been verified with the Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel host adapters and intelligent hubs, assuring high-performance uninterrupted data availability for end users. Emulex is pleased to be working closely with Legato on its visionary SAN strategy.''
''Legato's Information Utility and Exabyte's SAN ready family of Arrowhead DLT and Mammoth Libraries are the ideal storage solutions for managed network backup,'' said Mike Koclanes, vice president and general manager of Exabyte's Storage Automation Division. ''With Legato's excellent reputation for data protection and data availability, and the reliability of Exabyte's SAN ready libraries with Fibre Channel support, 'out-of-band' Java Management, and high availability options, such as hot swappable redundant power supplies, and hot pluggable drives, the IT professional can be assured of a best in class solution for network data management.''
''G2 is excited about the roadmap that Legato has outlined for managing the Information Utility,'' said Roy Sardina, vice president, sales and business development at G2 Networks, Inc. ''Our products enable enterprises to take full advantage of high-performance clustering technology in a SAN. We will work closely with Legato to ensure interoperable and manageable solutions are delivered.''
''Gadzoox Networks is committed to partnering with industry leaders to develop solutions that enable users to realize the advanced capabilities of SANs,'' said Dave Tang, Gadzoox Networks' vice president of marketing. ''Our partnership with Legato on the Information Utility initiative is aimed at accelerating the delivery of these capabilities by leveraging a common SAN vision and Gadzoox's leadership position in managed SAN hubs and switches. By providing a manageability foundation for high availability, resiliency and performance optimization, Gadzoox' modular and upgradeable SAN products help to provide a seamless migration path to increasingly powerful SANs.''
''Escalating customer requirements in scalability, performance, and management are driving the need for Storage Area Networks. MTI is pleased to be working with Legato Systems to build certified SANs and deliver the Information Utility concept to customers who require higher levels of functionality,'' said Kevin J. Liebl, vice president of marketing at MTI Technology Corporation.
''Network Appliance's existing relationship with Legato is strengthened through our support of Legato's Information Utility initiative,'' said Charlie Simmons, vice president of marketing at Network Appliance. ''The Legato/NetApp combination provides solutions for the most demanding enterprise storage requirements using a powerful integration of NAS and SAN technology.''
''Overland Data shares a common vision about the evolution of the SAN environment and is excited to work with Legato in the Information Utility initiative,'' said Steve Richardson, vice president of marketing at Overland Data. ''The strong products offered by Legato, like Legato NetWorker, Legato SmartMedia, and the Legato GEMS product family, operating with the highly scalable and reliable Overland library in an intelligent SAN storage solution will provide a backup appliance-like solution capable of automatically managing all user data backup requirements transparently. This solution can grow and adapt to changing user needs during the complex evolution of SANs.''
''The solutions that the Information Utility identify will provide a catalyst for propelling the adoption of Fibre Channel,'' said Larry Fortmuller, vice president of Computer Systems Group at QLogic Corporation. ''As a leader in the design and delivery of Fibre Channel-based SAN interfaces, QLogic welcomes and supports Legato's vision.''
''Qualstar TLS-Series Tape Libraries and Legato NetWorker team together to secure critical data at hundreds of installations throughout the world,'' said Bob Covey, vice president of marketing at Qualstar. ''Information Utility provides solid answers that our customers need to confidently plan their increasingly sophisticated and complex storage requirements. Information Utility will accelerate SAN adoption and, in combination with Legato SmartMedia, expand applications for our tape libraries.''
''Silicon Graphics is pleased to support Legato's SAN initiative. As a leader in digital media SAN deployments, SGI sees customers who are ready to incorporate Legato's storage management features into their existing SAN environments,'' said Anne Vincenti-Lambert, director of storage and networking marketing at SGI. ''Legato SmartMedia, based on Silicon Graphics'® OpenVault(TM) technology, is a critical SAN element of highly scalable, dynamic tape sharing.''
''Legato is a key storage management partner for StorageTek, and we are pleased to be presenting at today's announcement and participating in the SAN demonstrations,'' according to Don Kleinschnitz, vice president of strategy and alliances for StorageTek's Multiplatform Business Group. ''The benefits of the Information Utility, including robust data protection, high data accessibility, and continuous operations in SAN environments are consistent with the StorageTek VISTA architecture. The interoperability efforts between StorageTek and Legato will bring our mutual customers practical SAN solutions that are integrated, intelligent, and open.''
''Leading the industry with more active ports in the market than any other Fibre Channel interconnect provider, Vixel's Fibre Channel hubs, switches, and transceivers solve real IT problems with Legato-certified solutions for LAN-free backup and clustering,'' said Brian Reed, vice president of marketing at Vixel. ''We are committed to this strategic partnership and the vision of Information Utility. Tested and proven applications, such as ours demonstration today with Legato, supports this vision and will advance storage networking for enterprises.''
''Our customers have been asking for a better way to effectively integrate the many different products integrated into aSAN strategy,'' said Derek Gamradt, senior storage engineer, at Vangard Technology. ''We are able to show our customers how they can leverage their existing investments in Legato NetWorker to migrate from a centralized data backup architecture to a comprehensive SAN implementation using the roadmap outlined by Legato Systems. The endorsements of the Legato SAN roadmap from our key hardware vendors provide our customers the confidence to begin the process of deploying a SAN strategy sooner rather than later.''
About Legato Systems
Legato Systems, Inc. develops, markets, and supports an integrated set of enterprise storage management software products for heterogeneous client/server computing environments. Large customers around the world select the Company's solution because of its reliability, platform independence, and unique ability to seamlessly integrate with existing and future computing environments. Legato's storage management software has become the recognized de facto standard with the largest installed base, representing over 37,000 customers, protecting more than 4,000,000 systems. Twenty-four of the world's largest system and applications vendors have chosen Legato as a strategic partner for protecting their customers' data, including Banyan, Compaq, Data General, Fujitsu/Amdahl, Fujitsu/ICL, Groupe Bull, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Informix, NEC, Netscape, Network Appliance, Nihon-Unisys, Oracle, Siemens Nixdorf, Silicon Graphics, Sony and Sun Microsystems. The Company's NetWorker, BusinesSuite, SmartMedia, and GEMS products are also licensed, resold, or endorsed by other major vendors, including BMC Software; Box Hill; Computer Associates; Tivoli, an IBM company; Microsoft Corporation; MTI Technology; Novell; and SAP. Legato's home page address on the World Wide Web is legato.com.
Note to Editors: Legato NetWorker and Legato SmartMedia are registered trademarks, and NetWorker Archive, NetWorker HSM, ClientPak, SmartClient, StorSuite, BusinesSuite, Power Edition, Legato GEMS, and OpenTape are trademarks of Legato Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other product, trademark, company, or service names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
Silicon Graphics is a registered trademark and OpenVault is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc.
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Contact:
Legato Systems, Inc.
Suzan Woods, 650/812-6112
swoods@legato.com
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