EMC Symmetrix DMX an VMAX Continues to Be Compatible With IBM Mainframes

EMC Corporation and IBM Corporation announced the extension of a technology licensing agreement that enables customers to install and utilize EMC and IBM products in heterogeneous IBM zEnterprise mainframe server environments.

The multi-year agreement facilitates interoperability of EMC Symmetrix DMX and VMAX storage systems with IBM Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy and Extended Remote Copy (XRC) functions. The licensing agreement also covers additional IBM interfaces, including FlashCopy, Multiple Allegiance, Parallel Access Volumes (PAV), Dynamic PAV, and HyperPAV, which are supported on EMC Symmetrix systems.

As part of the agreement, IBM will provide EMC with technical specifications that will continue to enable compatibility between EMC Symmetrix DMX and VMAX storage systems and the IBM zEnterprise System running the current and future versions of the IBM z operating systems. Financial terms are not being disclosed.

Mark Anzani, IBM Vice President,  Chief Technology Officer, System z said: "This extension agreement underscores IBM’s commitment to industry interoperability, by sharing information about IBM innovations that bring value to clients who choose to deploy technologies from multiple sources. By enabling choices in storage infrastructure from vendors such as IBM and EMC, clients can confidently grow applications and data onto the system z platform."  

Peter Conway, EMC Vice President, Symmetrix and Virtualization Product Group, added: "This extension of our relationship with IBM will assure the continuation of access to the benefits of EMC’s information infrastructure solutions by IBM zEnterprise customers. Through efforts such as this, EMC is furthering its commitment to providing zEnterprise customers with industry leading storage systems, software and services."

This is the latest in a series of licensing agreements and extensions between IBM and EMC covering various technologies from both companies. In October 2003, EMC and IBM first announced a licensing agreement that provided EMC with access to a range of mainframe storage interfaces and functionality for other IBM systems lines and also  a mutual exchange of open-standards based interfaces for improved manageability and interoperability. This agreement was extended in June of 2007. In June 2005, the two companies extended a cooperative support agreement which remains in place today. It facilitates mutual response to joint customer issues across various IBM Systems lines.