EMC Centera Software With New XAM Specification

EMC
Corporation unveiled an EMC Centera software development kit and
Early Adopter Program for the new eXtensible Access Method (XAM)
specification.

As a leading industry proponent of open standards and a
major contributor of intellectual property to the XAM specification,
EMC is working to help customers obtain the maximum business value from
their fixed content – unchanging digital information – by helping to
enable multi-vendor solution interoperability.

Developed
by EMC and others in collaboration with The Storage Networking Industry
Association (SNIA), XAM is a software framework for fixed content
storage solutions that enables multi-vendor solution interoperability,
simplified data portability, and automated Information Lifecycle
Management for long term records retention and regulatory compliance.
Fixed content, such as mortgage and financial records, medical images,
e-mail archives and voice records, typically must be retained and
easily accessible for long periods of time and is often subject to
regulatory requirements. XAM defines a standard access method between
applications, management software and storage systems to manage and
store fixed content.

“It is rewarding to see
the major storage and application providers join with EMC in embracing
a standard model for storing and retrieving fixed content. As an
industry interface standard, XAM promises significant benefits to
customers, independent software vendors, and system vendors alike,”
said Jay Mastaj, EMC Vice President of Centera Engineering. “A rapid,
industry-wide adoption of the XAM standard will ensure a new level of
information management agility, reliability and application/system
independence for customers’ fixed content information repositories.”

“EMC
continues to invest significant resources to advance Centera’s
technology and market leadership. From the July introduction of the
Centera Generation 4 LP node which reduces energy consumption by 67
percent per terabyte, to the recent introduction of the new Centera
operating system, Centera sets a pace of innovation that is unmatched
in the industry,” said Rich Napolitano, Senior Vice President, EMC
Storage Division. “With over 4,600 Centera customers worldwide and more
than 90 percent revenue share of the content addressed storage hardware
market, EMC continues to lead the CAS market that we pioneered with the
Centera platform. Perhaps nowhere is our continued investment in
Centera more evident than in our extensive work in the development of
the XAM standard, which promises to make it easier for customers to
deploy multi-vendor solutions that help them better manage their fixed
content throughout its lifecycle.”

Available
to select EMC partners through the Early Adopter Program, the Centera
software development kit enables Centera ISVs to familiarize themselves
with the XAM specification and begin the development work to ensure
XAM-enabled interoperability with Centera. The EMC Centera software
development kit for XAM will be made available in August.

EMC
Corporation