EMC Signs Extension to IBM Licensing Agreement Through 2017

HOPKINTON, Mass., Oct. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

News Summary:

• EMC and IBM are extending their existing technology licensing agreement by two years through 2017, to provide IBM i customers with storage interoperability interfaces and technical support.
• The multi-year history of commitment and collaboration between EMC and IBM continues to enable customers to deploy combinations of EMC^® VMAX^® storage and IBM Power Systems technologies.
• A D910 interface provides IBM i customers with the flexibility to use EMC VMAX Virtual Provisioning^™ and Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST^™ VP) technologies to help reduce costs and simplify management in IBM i environments.

Full Story:

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) has extended its existing technology licensing agreement with IBM for interoperability with the IBM i integrated operating environment for IBM Power Systems by another two years—to 2017. Under the agreement, EMC^® and IBM will continue collaborating to provide IBM i customers with jointly developed storage interoperability interfaces and technical support so that IBM i customers have the choice, flexibility and support to deploy a combinations of EMC storage with IBM Power Systems technologies. In addition, EMC announced the D910 interface, which was jointly developed with, and is supported by IBM.

D910 Technology Highlights

The D910 provides EMC and IBM customers with a fully supported mechanism to use EMC FAST VP technology, while maintaining the benefits of a native IBM i device type and interface. With the D910 interface, IBM i customers have the flexibility to use high volume industry standard format Flash, Fibre Channel, SAS and SATA drives and to exploit the performance and efficiency benefits of these drive types in native IBM i environments.

EMC and IBM engineers worked together to develop the new D910-099 device type, which is a native 512 byte block FBA (Fixed Block Architecture) interface that is supported by hosts running IBM i 6.1.1 and later, as well as EMC VMAX 20K and EMC VMAX 40K storage arrays running VMAX Enginuity software (v5876 and later). The D910 native IBM i interface eliminates the need for specially formatted 520 byte per block disks in the external storage array, without requiring the use of the IBM VIOS layer.

This announcement is the latest in a rich history of EMC and IBM collaboratively supporting innovative technologies for IBM i customers.

• In 2005, EMC and IBM added cooperative support to the existing agreement, providing a mutual response to joint customer issues.
• In 2006, EMC and IBM extended the existing agreement to provide customers with access to a range of storage interfaces and functionality for the IBM i platform, and agreed to a mutual exchange of open-standards based interfaces for improved manageability and interoperability.
• In 2010, EMC and IBM again extended the existing agreement and began creating specifications for the new D910 device type and interface.
• Today, in 2012, EMC and IBM are delivering the D910 device type and interface, and are again extending the agreement another 2 years.

IBM Quote

Ari Kugler, IBM Director Business Development, Power and z Systems

"IBM i running on an IBM Power Systems server offers customers a highly scalable and robust architecture with a proven reputation for exceptional business resilience and low operational costs. The extension of this agreement with EMC to ensure broader storage compatibility and support is another example of the investments we are making to the future of IBM i as an important, strategic element in the IBM systems portfolio."

EMC Quote

Peter C. Conway, Vice President Enterprise Storage Division, EMC

"EMC continues to drive innovation for the unique needs of mission critical virtualized data centers. By extending our agreement with IBM, we're committing to continue innovating to bring even more value to Power Systems customers running IBM i environments. This exclusive collaboration between EMC and IBM—with the development of technologies like D910—unlocks the ability for our customers to leverage all of the advantages of EMC VMAX storage natively in IBM i environments—helping customers to preserve and extend their mission critical investments in IBM i."

Additional Resources

Connect with EMC via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing.  Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

EMC, VMAX, Virtual Provisioning and FAST are either registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. IBM and the IBM logo are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. For a current list of IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.

This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Federal Securities Laws.  Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (v) component and product quality and availability; (vi) fluctuations in VMware, Inc.'s operating results and risks associated with trading of VMware stock; (vii) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (viii) risks associated with managing the growth of our business, including risks associated with acquisitions and investments and the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (ix) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (x) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (xi) fluctuating currency exchange rates; (xii) threats and other disruptions to our secure data centers or networks; (xiii) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (xiv) war or acts of terrorism; and (xv) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

SOURCE EMC Corporation