Conserving energy with ETERNUS storage systems
Fujitsu has long been in the vanguard of environmentally-responsible companies that understand the vital importance of protecting the globe. In a recently published white paper, Fujitsu details the steps it has taken to lower the energy demands of its ETERNUS storage systems.
In its statement of scope, the paper notes: “Today, because of strong demand for storage capacity, customers are faced with serious issues of power and cooling in their data centers. The density of today’s storage systems, the insatiable demand for storage and the rising cost of energy are forerunners of an impending energy crisis in the data center.
“Analysts predict that data centers will soon reach their capacity limits in terms of power and air conditioning. This may impose tight restrictions on companies who want to expand their business but also need to substantially increase IT support in growing market segments, if there are no changes in the energy efficiency of IT systems and their operation. Gartner predicts that within the next several years, half of the world's data centers will become obsolete because of power and space restrictions and that energy costs will eat up to one-third of IT budgets. Gartner forecasts that in 2008, 50% of all data centers will no longer be able to meet the power and cooling requirements of their IT systems.”
To read the entire white paper about this enormously important subject, go to this link.
ComplianceEase relies on Fujitsu storage and servers to improve reliability
On February 4, Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation announced that ComplianceEase, a division of LogicEase Solutions Inc., has standardized on a Fujitsu ETERNUS(R) storage area network (SAN) and Fujitsu SPARC(R)-based servers running the Solaris(TM) operating system to power its industry-leading risk management platform, including ComplianceAnalyzer(R), a hosted web-based automated compliance solution for the financial services industry. With Fujitsu, ComplianceEase(R) now enjoys unmatched support from the Fujitsu Customer Services team, and has further augmented the level of performance and reliability demanded by its annual SAS70 audit.
Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, ComplianceEase serves the mortgage industry with a patented, web-based automated solution that uses advanced reasoning and decisioning technologies as well as natural language processing to review residential mortgages for regulatory compliance in a fraction of the time and for a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches. The company's success is directly tied to the performance and reliability of its IT systems.
"We needed to upgrade our systems with the most current technology for better performance, reliability and security, and with our annual SAS70 Type II audit of internal controls on the horizon, the timing was ideal," said Jason Roth, SVP Product Development & Engineering at ComplianceEase, referring to the third-party assurance certificate program developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
To read the entire press release about the Fujitsu-ComplianceEase arrangement, click here. To learn more about ComplianceEase, be sure to visit their web site.
CentricStor v.4 named a top VTL market leader
CentricStor’s position as a top market leader in an independent, cross-vendor study of virtual tape appliances crowns the recent launch of Version 4 by Fujitsu Siemens Computers.
In a report published January 31st, “The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Open Systems Virtual Tape Libraries, Q1 2008”, CentricStor was named by Forrester Research as a top market leader, based on evaluation of 12 vendors based upon 58 criteria.
In addition to a top score for its strategy, the Forrester report states that “Fujitsu Siemens Computers leads for its host support, architecture, and tape integration”. Furthermore, the report states: “As a major systems vendor in Europe, Fujitsu Siemens Computers has a solid installed base of more than 300 customers and more than 500 VTLs, mostly in large enterprises. It has solid growth in new customers and one of the highest percentages of repeat customers.”
Dr Helmut Beck, Vice President Storage at Fujitsu Siemens Computers, comments: “Being awarded a position as a leader for CentricStor Version 4 from independent research is gratifying. The Forrester report acknowledges our unique architecture, the support for both mainframe and open systems allowing real tape consolidation, and CentricStor’s capabilities for embracing tape and therefore reducing the cost of managing tape dramatically and making tape fit for ILM. Having passed 500 installations, we have grown CentricStor into a world-class enterprise storage solution.”
The new version of CentricStor provides the industry’s biggest backup capacities – starting with the biggest VTL cache, which now scales up to a massive one Petabyte – and a trebling of the number of logical volumes that can be processed in one system, from 500,000 to 1,500,000.
About CentricStor: CentricStor is the first virtual tape solution that provides intelligent data protection by storing all enterprise backup data autonomously on disk or on tape. This unique dual-target storage solution exploits the best of disk and tape in a seamless manner. Making tape fit for Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), enterprise data protection can be flexibly aligned to different Service Level Agreements (SLA). CentricStor offers superior connectivity with True Tape Virtualization and enables outstanding reductions in TCO by consolidating all backup storage devices. The powerful CentricStor Grid Architecture features unmatched scalability and disaster resilience for every type of data center. To read more about CentricStor, be sure to go to this link.
ETERNUS Storage Systems introduction video offered
Fujitsu focuses on developing total network storage products and services that execute your mission critical requirements in the best way possible. They not only protect your essential data assets, but also provide the functions and performance that allow you to use the right data at the right time.
If you would like a quick overview of the Fujitsu ETERNUS storage systems, there is a 12 minute introductory video go at this link on the Fujitsu web site. This video provides an easy-to-understanding overview of the characteristics, development, and features of the ETERNUS storage systems.
University of Delaware selects ETERNUS4000 for mission-critical backups
The University of Delaware needed an enterprise-class storage solution for backup and recovery of critical academic and administrative data. The University required a highly reliable, capacity-intensive, and scalable solution that was also cost-effective.
The ETERNUS®4000 Model 500 is used for mission-critical backup services and intermediary disk storage for disk-to-disk backup. Currently, the ETERNUS4000 is backing up 250 servers across the entire university. Directly attached to a server that runs EMC Networker, the ETERNUS4000 is used to back up academic research, Oracle databases for PeopleSoft applications, email and Web servers, and the library catalogue.
Fibre Channel (FC) compatibility and FC disk drives increase performance and redundancy as well as provide greater storage capacity at a lower cost. Leveraging the ETERNUS4000, the University can recover lost data much more quickly, and has noticed a significant reduction in the time required to copy to tape. Having capacity scalability has also proven to be a benefit, enabling the University to grow its storage as needs evolve. The excellent support provided by the Fujitsu team has also proven to be a major advantage.
To read the entire University of Delaware case study, go to the ETERNUS case studies site.
Fujitsu IT Leadership Continues to Shape BPM Industry
On February 19, Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation and the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) announced that for the second year in a row, Keith Swenson, Fujitsu Computer Systems' vice president of research and development, has been appointed the WfMC's vice chairman (Americas) and technical committee chairman, and Dave Hollingsworth, managing solutions architect, Fujitsu Services, Ltd., has been named technical committee chairman emeritus.
The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) is the only standards body focused exclusively on workflow and business process management, and in 2008 will continue its work on promoting the adoption of its core standards, XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) and Wf-XML, and driving overall market awareness and implementation of workflow and BPM through on-going education programs and industry-wide collaborations.
"The long-term involvement of Keith and Dave in the Workflow Management Coalition is of tremendous value to both the industry and Fujitsu," said Ryosuke Mori, executive vice president, Software and Strategy, Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation. "They are playing a key role in ensuring that the industry stays focused on meeting the needs of customers, and they ensure our products conform to the most stringent industry standards and remain best-in-class."
To read more about Keith and Dave, and a link to the Workflow Management Coalition, click here.
Fujitsu named a Top Green-IT Company by Computerworld
On February 20, Fujitsu Computer Systems announced that IDG's Computerworld, the "Voice of IT Management," had selected Fujitsu as one of the top Green-IT Companies for 2008. This honor is part of the IT media outlet's very first Top Green-IT Companies feature, which was published in the February 18 issue of Computerworld and online at www.computerworld.com. Fujitsu was selected based on its approach to meeting environmental challenges.
The Fujitsu Environmental Program develops employee, facility, and manufacturing-based environmental programs. In August of 2007, for example, the Fujitsu campus in Sunnyvale, Calif. installed a hydrogen fuel cell to significantly reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, making Fujitsu the first Silicon Valley-based IT company to install its own hydrogen power plant. Since 1996, Fujitsu has published regular reports detailing the programs and results of its environmental protection activities. Fujitsu has made the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index eight years in a row, and the FTSE4Good Index Series five years in a row. By the end of fiscal 2009, all Fujitsu business units will increase the number of Super Green Products (those with the most advanced environmental-friendly characteristics) by at least 20 percent. For more information about Fujitsu's environmental initiatives, be sure to visit the Fujitsu Environment page.
"Fujitsu has a deep commitment to environmental responsibility, and we are proud of the leadership we've shown over the years, from reducing our carbon footprint, to eliminating lead and other harmful wastes from our supply chain and products, to broad recycling and reuse programs," said Richard McCormack, senior vice president of marketing for Fujitsu Computer Systems. "We welcome being named among the top green IT-companies by Computerworld and we will continue to invest in innovation and programs that are both good for the environment and smart for our business."
To read the entire press release regarding this honor, click on this link.