Fujitsu Into Managed Storage Service

As unstructured data and compliance issues continue to drive storage growth, Fujitsu Technology Solutions announces the international roll-out of its Managed Storage service, enabling organizations to regain control of their data and associated management costs.

By making the move to Managed Storage from Fujitsu, organizations of all sizes are offered greater flexibility in managing their data, backed by cost control and state-of-the-art data protection from a reputable, established vendor.

Organizations building Dynamic Infrastructures to achieve the maximum performance from their investments in Information Technology can now choose an alternative to the challenge of self-managing petabytes of data, with Fujitsu managing storage both on-premise and off-premise. In addition to unlocking the capital previously tied up in IT hardware and management costs, as storage management costs are transformed into variable costs, Fujitsu Managed Storage offers customers high scalability and flexibility, removing any restrictions on data growth, on a pay-per-use model.

Today, enterprises’ number one storage spending priority is to extend storage capacity, which is still growing year-on-year despite the global economic slowdown, according to research company IDC. Continued demand for additional capacity means that ever-increasing volumes of data must be regularly backed up, stored and then archived long-term.
 
Fujitsu Managed Storage enables customers to put this entire process in expert hands, but still retain control of their infrastructure. From initial transition planning through to Service Level Agreements for the availability of data, Fujitsu takes over the whole process, providing a simple, easy-to-manage service. Since Fujitsu is simply taking over storage management, migration is seamless and instantaneous.

Following a successful business build-up in Germany, Fujitsu is now starting the roll out of its Managed Storage service across continental Europe. In Phase One, available immediately, Managed Storage is available with immediate effect in Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain. Service availability will be further extended into additional European countries from early 2010.

For customers switching to Managed Storage, Fujitsu promises to utilize existing infrastructure where possible. Customers can also choose to have their systems managed remotely from Fujitsu’s Systems Management Center in Paderborn, Germany, or on-premise, or can select a combination of the two.

Says Ulrich Kreft, Head of Managed Storage at Fujitsu Technology Solutions: “Once customers have adopted a Managed Storage model, they wonder why they ever tried managing their own data and infrastructure in the first place. After making the switch to Fujitsu Managed Storage, maintaining your own data goes the same way as generating your own electricity, or operating your own telephone network – it’s a thing of the past.”

Among the first European customers for Fujitsu Managed Storage are SAP in Germany and the Belgian national electricity transmission system operator Elia.

At SAP global headquarters in Walldorf, Germany, Fujitsu has been managing SAP’s core storage infrastructure since 2007, with the entire backup infrastructure running on Fujitsu ETERNUS CS virtual tape appliances.

In Belgium, Elia is one of the first customers for Fujitsu Managed Storage. Wim Michiels, who heads Elia’s IT and Datacom Exploitation Server Team, says: “Our core competence is providing electrical transmission grids. Powerful ICT is the basis for all our company’s activities in this regard. And for storage management, we can count on support from the reliable team of Fujitsu.”