StorageNetworks lands BellSouth deal

By Kevin Komiega, Assistant News Editor 16 Oct 2001 | SearchStorage

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StorageNetworks Inc., is sampling some southern hospitality.

The Waltham, Mass.-based storage services provider has found a home for its STORfusion services within the communications networks of the Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp.

According to analysts, this agreement, which allows BellSouth to offer a broad range of storage services to its customers, is one of many similar agreements that are likely to be made in the next few months between SSPs and telcos.

StorageNetworks is partnering with BellSouth to provide its STORos operating system, STORvision command and control software and Virtual Storage Portal (VSP) software as an operating infrastructure layer for the BellSouth's newly announced Storage-Enabled Network (SEN).

According to Donna Lee, chief marketing officer of BellSouth, the BellSouth SEN will combine StorageNetworks' software and services with the BellSouth network to provide a range of storage services to its 46 million business and consumer customers.

The STORos operating system integrates and centralizes the distributed and heterogeneous management elements of a storage environment, said StorageNetworks. The Virtual Storage Portal (VSP) and STORvision command and control software let end users and service providers directly access, control and manage their storage infrastructure.

Lee said the addition of StorageNetworks' STORfusion services will give BellSouth an opportunity to create new sources of revenue by offering data storage management services to its customers.

"No one company can do everything on its own," said Lee.

International Data Corp., analyst Doug Chandler said this is the kind of deal StorageNetworks had in mind when it launched STORfusion last May.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see some other deals like this announced in the next few months, specifically with [telecommunications companies] offering managed storage services with a partner storage service provider or supplier," said Chandler.

"Moving storage intelligence onto the network gives customers greater control over their storage environments and automates labor intensive, complex storage management tasks," said Peter Bell, chairman and CEO of StorageNetworks.

Bell believes the future of storage is in centralized management where the intelligence resides at the core of the network. The combination of StorageNetworks' software and BellSouth's communications network is the next step in storage, according to Bell.

BellSouth has signed Sun Microsystems Inc., as the preferred technology provider for the Storage-Enabled Network. The SEN framework will be based on Sun StorEdge systems and Sun Enterprise servers running on the Solaris Operating Environment.

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