Special Section: SNW, Fall 2004 - More News From SNW:

SNW Honors Three EMC Customers With 'Best Practices' Awards

EMC Corp announced that three EMC customers -- Adirondack Electronics Markets (AEM), MidAmerica Bank and Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker -- were honored by Storage Networking World in the "Best Practices in Storage" Awards Program. The awards honor organizations that have applied exemplary storage solutions to deliver strategic advantage to their enterprise. These customers, selected based on their innovative use of EMC technology and its impact on their businesses, were recognized during a special awards ceremony at Storage Networking World.

A wide range of IT end-user companies and organizations responded to an initial "call for nominations," which was originally announced to multiple industry audiences, including Computerworld subscribers responsible for storage solutions. Finalists were evaluated by a panel of judges based on case study submissions that profiled the company, its IT department and storage challenges, as well as application deployment details, summaries of the key technology used and measurable solution outcomes.

"Storage has become an essential business function for Fortune 500 companies as well as large enterprises across the globe, and the success of this year's SNW conference is proof of that," said Ron Milton, executive vice president for Computerworld. "This year's 'Best Practices in Storage' Awards Program recognizes companies who have elevated storage from a technology department business function to a strategic initiative for senior-level executives."

"AEM, MidAmerica and Paul Hastings exemplify how EMC's full breadth of information storage and management solutions play a vital role in ensuring more intelligent, efficient and secure management of information across their entire enterprises," said Howard Elias, EMC's executive vice president of corporate marketing and Office of Technology. "By having the vision and drive to implement advanced information lifecycle management, business continuity and compliance strategies, these companies have been able to meet their business goals, serve their customers more reliably and, ultimately, lead their respective industries with greater strength and efficiency. Winning the 'Best Practices in Storage' awards is well-deserved recognition of their extraordinary achievements."

AEM, a New York-based privately-held market maker, was a winner in the Award's Data Lifecycle Management category for its intelligent e-mail archiving solution which combines EMC Centera content-addressed storage and EMC Legato EmailXtender, EMC Legato EmailXaminer and EMC Legato DiskXtender software. The solution provides AEM with automated and secure archiving of all e-mail messages as they are sent or received, which is essential for complying with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) regulations. Because faster and easier retrieval of archived emails is now possible, AEM can also respond more rapidly and effectively to audits and legal discovery requests, which decreases costs for compliance and reduces liability risks.

MidAmerica Bank, one of the Midwest's largest financial institutions, was a winner in the Storage Reliability and Data Recovery category for its tiered data protection implementation. Chicago-based MidAmerica uses EMC business continuity software to mirror data across long distances, as well as produce local back-up copies for both business-critical information stored on EMC Symmetrix systems and mid-tier data stored on EMC CLARiiON systems. As a result, the bank's tiered business continuity strategy has reduced recovery time in the event of a disaster from as much as 48 hours to less than one hour and with zero data loss. Moreover, through automation, the solution has significantly reduced labor costs associated with data protection.

Paul Hastings, a leading international law firm with more than 900 attorneys, received an honorable mention in the Systems Implementation category. The firm was recognized for its comprehensive business continuity solution, which provides long-distance data replication spanning 3,000 miles from the firm's production data center in Los Angeles to another site in New York City -- a level of data protection unprecedented in the legal industry. With this solution, Paul Hastings has reduced total system recovery time from two days to just two hours, while dramatically increasing data availability and increasing staff productivity.

The complete list of "Best Practices in Storage" Awards Program winners can be found online at www.snwusa.com/.

About EMC

EMC Corp is a provider of products, services and solutions for information storage and management that help organizations extract the maximum value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.emc.com/.