EMC touts technology to tap compliance needs

EMC has announced initiatives and a version of its Centera content technology aimed at aligning the storage vendor closely with companies' compliance needs.

While user organisations face extra work from modern-day regulations surrounding risk and accountability, many vendors are presenting Basel II, International Accounting Standards, Sarbanes-Oxley and more as opportunities to overhaul IT processes and make organisations more efficient.

John Gubernat, director of global solutions for compliance and enterprise content solutions at EMC, said: "You have to be looking at making compliance an integral part of overall IT strategy. You can't do compliance without good information management and solid IT."

As such, EMC is touting email archiving using Legato storage software and content archiving and retrieval from partner Mobius as well as its Documentum division.

In line with its mantra about being 'solutions focused' - as opposed to a mere seller of storage boxes - EMC is offering updated services and new software functionality for its Centera line of content addressed storage, which typically handles fixed content such as email archives or historical documents.

The latter, said Gubernat, is important not just for retrieval. For example, within the European Union data-retention laws call for certain classes of information to be expunged after a given time. Software from EMC and other vendors now allows 'auto-delete' functionality but, crucially, records are 'tombstoned' so organisations can work out what kind of data had been recorded and when.

Financial securities company Adirondack Electronics Markets has used EMC for compliance and claims its time to produce three months of archived email has fallen from days to minutes.

Separately, at the end of last week EMC announced a storage alliance for its mid-range Clariion products with Samsung in Asia.