EMC Corp. and Veritas Software Corp. said Monday they have agreed to swap additional application programming interfaces (APIs), a move that extends an existing deal and allows the companies to better integrate their respective hardware and software products.
Clipper Group Inc. analyst Mike Fisch said that the extension of the companies' relationship will make for better storage management software.
"The real objective of storage management software is managing the end-to-end data path, not just isolated devices and components. Only a comprehensive system approach can optimize the whole storage infrastructure," Fisch said.
According to Fisch, both EMC and Veritas sell components in the data path. For EMC, it's storage arrays and switches. For Veritas, it's file systems, volume managers and host-based replication software. "Though these vendors are competitive at the software-management layer, they are complementary at the device layer, so API swapping would be in their mutual best interests," Fisch said.
The agreement extends access to previously exchanged APIs and includes new APIs relating to storage arrays, volume and file management, and replication features.
EMC, based in Hopkinton, Mass., and Veritas, based in Mountain View, Calif., said their customers will see better interoperability and product support.
EMC said it will license APIs to Veritas to provide broader support to EMC Symmetrix and Clariion storage systems, as well as Celerra network servers.
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Veritas will license APIs to EMC to support the mapping, control and replication functions of the Volume Manager, File System and Veritas Foundation Suite products, the companies said. The duo said it will also develop cooperative support levels, so that end users of the respective storage system and storage management products can receive joint support for the integrated product offerings.
The new agreement also calls for added support to EMC's Symmetrix, Clariion and Celerra, going beyond what was in the previous shared API set.
Randy Kerns, analyst for the Boulder, Colo.-based Evaluator Group Inc., said Veritas received some low-level APIs into their storage software, which will allow EMC to integrate that with their own software, especially the SRM software StorageScope.
"It's good business for both, and is part of the current status where the integration of management software, [including] device management, provides benefits for customers," Kerns said.
He added: "Some vendors want customers to wait until there's a CIM implementation for everything, but that may take a while to reach critical mass. The exchange of APIs helps solve customer problems now, with an advantage for those companies, before the critical mass using CIM is achieved."
Let us know what you think about the story. E-mail Kevin Komiega, News Writer
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