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EMC teams up for database management

The storage company forges an agreement with software maker OuterBay that focuses on databases and is designed to help companies improve information management.

Ed Frauenheim Former Staff Writer, News
Ed Frauenheim covers employment trends, specializing in outsourcing, training and pay issues.
Ed Frauenheim
2 min read
Storage company EMC has forged an agreement with software maker OuterBay Technologies that focuses on databases and is designed to help companies improve information management of throughout data's lifetime.

Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC and Campbell, Calif.-based OuterBay announced on Monday a partnership in which OuterBay's Application Data Management Suite will be integrated into EMC's so-called information lifecycle management (ILM) software products. The resulting offerings are designed to let customers monitor database growth and usage automatically, according to the companies.

In addition, EMC and OuterBay said their joint effort will permit clients to "more dynamically" move data among different storage tiers, while preserving data access, reducing storage costs and improving overall performance of their database environments.

"OuterBay will further EMC's ability to help organizations extract the maximum value for structured content environments at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle," Mark Sorenson, EMC's senior vice president of information management software, said in a statement.

ILM refers to efficiently storing and keeping track of data from the time it is created to when it is archived or deleted. For example, the most critical data might be kept on the highest-performing storage systems, but older or less vital information might be moved to lower-cost disk devices and eventually to tape systems for long-term archiving.

ILM has become a catch phrase in the storage industry, as technology companies seek to help organizations handle growing mounds of data and a raft of relatively new regulations. Hewlett-Packard and Storage Technology (also known as StorageTek) are among the other storage companies vying for data lifecycle management dollars.

EMC has been one of the most active in the arena. In October, it completed its acquisition of data storage software company Legato Software and announced a plan to acquire content management software company Documentum.

The new pact between EMC and OuterBay builds on an existing relationship between the companies. In January 2003, the two announced a technology agreement and the integration of OuterBay's LiveArchive software with EMC's Centera "content addressed storage" product.