Features - Storage Innovations:

IBM UNVEILS DATA STORAGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

IBM Corp said it will start selling data storage management systems next month that will make it easier for businesses to manage their data on networks.

Armonk, NY-based IBM has been working for years on the system, which was code-named StorageTank, as its large corporate customers have struggled to manage their rapidly growing amounts of data.

Now, most networked storage is organized so that any time when a file is used, the system makes a copy of that file, creating multiple copies. Then, to access that file, it's moved to new areas of the computer system. But the new IBM systems allows for files to be accessed where they are originally stored, without creating new copies.

Data management systems have become increasingly important to data storage vendors such as EMC Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co as the popularity of storing data on a network has increased.

At the same time, technology companies such as IBM are looking for new profitable storage products amid stiff competition and lower prices on data storage hardware.

Competitor EMC Corp, a traditional player in the hardware portion of the storage market, for instance, is working on storage software that will automate managing data on disparate systems.

IBM's software will work with IBM storage systems to start with, IBM director of storage software strategy Bruce Hillsberg said, and next year will start working with non-IBM storage.

The issue of storage software that can manage data sitting on systems made by different companies is a large one for corporations that use multiple types of storage systems that do not easily work together.

John McArthur, an analyst at market research group IDC, said that IBM's plans to expand the system to disparate storage systems show that their is value in being able to manage disparate systems.

"But the reality is that there are a lot of corporations that run their infrastructure on an all IBM or mostly IBM infrastructure and they'll be able to do that," he said.