Blum Chooses StoreAge SVM To Provide Advanced SAN Storage Management And Ensure Business Continuity

StoreAge Networking Technologies, an innovator in enterprise SAN storage management, today announced that its SVM (Storage Virtualization Manager) has been deployed at Julius Blum GmbH, an international furniture hardware company. Blum selected StoreAge to provide heterogeneous storage consolidation, asynchronous mirroring, zero-window backup and centralized storage management, all while significantly lowering administration costs. The installation was accomplished in cooperation with ILS Consult GmbH, StoreAge's partner in Austria.

Blum (www.blum.com) is a leading manufacturer of hinge, drawer and pullout systems as well as assembly devices for furniture fittings. The company was founded in Höchst in 1952, and has since developed as an international company, active in 70 countries around the world with subsidiaries in 17 countries. Blum has 3,700 employees worldwide, and its annual turnover is 590.7 million EUR.

Before implementing the StoreAge solution, Blum had a homogeneous Compaq storage environment, but wanted to shift to a heterogeneous SAN including newly purchased IBM FAStT700 and FAStT900 storage arrays. In order to enable such change and provide storage consolidation, Blum chose StoreAge SVM as its central management system for integrating heterogeneous storage platforms and a variety of operating systems. The new remotely mirrored SAN supports and protects their critical Oracle clusters and CAD applications. Blum is also using StoreAge's advanced copy services, multiView, a logical copy ("snapshot") application, and multiCopy, an innovative copy facility that enables the instant creation of multiple physical copies of volumes. This allows for fast backup and restore of data (LAN-free & Server-free backup) that has significantly increased Blum's backup capability.

To ensure business continuity, Blum is now implementing a disaster recovery site at a distance of 2 km., connected by a Fibre Channel link. The remote site includes the same components as the primary site, with the integration of the existing HP StorageWorks MA8000. Data is mirrored from the primary site to the secondary (DR) site using StoreAge's multiMirror application, thus enabling instant recovery of data at the remote site should the primary site fail.

Wilfried Obermayer, IT manager at Blum, stated: "We are very pleased with the StoreAge solution, which enabled seamless migration from our existing, homogeneous environment to the new vendor independent heterogeneous SAN. Furthermore, we are now able to employ a comprehensive and dependable DR plan, using multiMirror's unique capabilities."

Gerhard Blaschek, managing director at ILS Consult, added: "The StoreAge SVM allowed Blum to implement uniform management for different departments, which previously required dedicated administration resources. At such a time when organizations are struggling to reduce costs, this is truly a great benefit for our customers."

"This successful installation was achieved through our close cooperation with ILS Consult," noted Dani Naor, vice president of business development at StoreAge. "StoreAge's mission of delivering highly scalable, yet affordable storage management solutions to customers is fulfilled through strong ties with leading industry partners worldwide."

About StoreAge Networking Technologies
StoreAge Networking Technologies is an innovative developer and provider of enterprise storage management solutions that centralize and simplify storage network administration. StoreAge network-based solutions provide a uniform, SAN-wide method for provisioning storage, ensuring business continuity, enabling cost-effective disaster recovery, and centrally managing cross-platform, multi-vendor storage environments. StoreAge's flagship product, SVM (Storage Virtualization Manager), has been successfully deployed worldwide, gaining exceptional success in managing storage in a wide variety of application environments including databases, OLTP, e-mail, ERP, CRM, video and many others. StoreAge offers worldwide sales, support and service, with principal offices in Irvine, CA and Nesher, Israel, and is a privately held company spun-off from IIS Intelligent Information Systems in 1999. For additional information, visit the StoreAge website at www.store-age.com or contact the company at info@store-age.com.

About ILS Consult GmbH
Since its establishment in 1994, ILS has been a provider of overall solutions for complex technical IT requirements ranging from consulting and planning, through implementation, installation and rollout, to training and support. ILS delivers advanced hardware and software products, and is supported by a network of local and international branches, ensuring rapid response and maximum flexibility, at affordable costs. Whether equipment is purchased, leased or financed per use (ASP), the customer's TCO is always optimized. The ILS Group was rated number 5 of 1,500 companies surveyed worldwide by the IBM Premiere-Business-Partner audit in 2003. To learn more about ILS, please contact office@ils-consult.at or visit www.ils-consult.at.