Army picks EMC for storage

The Army National Guard is in the midst of enabling more than 50 of its data centers to centrally manage and control data across different vendors' storage systems using software from EMC Corp., according to the Guard official leading the effort.

Lawrence Borkowski, the Army National Guard's chief of automation and plans, said the organization is "fast-forwarding" its commitment to streamline administrative operations.

The Guard is implementing storage-area networks (SANs) in more than 50 data centers domestically in four U.S. territories, and has purchased more than 200 terabytes of networked storage systems, software and services from EMC to do it, Borkowski said. SANs enable multiple servers to share communal pools of storage.

Borkowski added that EMC's technology is helping "mobilize Guard forces more quickly and efficiently because our critical information will be more available and better protected than ever before."

The SANs, based on EMC Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems, will be used for personnel records management, finance, logistics, contracts, e-mail and other applications.

The systems also will provide storage for Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Computer Corp. and other servers.

The contract was awarded in the second quarter of this year and shipping began in May. The EMC technology has been installed in about 40 percent of the data centers, with three-to-four more sites being done every week, according to an EMC spokesperson.

The Guard purchased the EMC technology through Northrop Grumman Information Technology, the prime contractor on the project, but would not disclose financial details of the work, according to a spokesperson.