Fujitsu's Softek announces general availability of second-generation SRM solution.

Softek, a provider of storage management software, has announced general availability of Softek Storage Manager, its multi-vendor storage resource management (SRM) solution.

General availability status for Softek Storage Manager 2.1 was achieved following successful completion of a 10-week early support program that involved 13 enterprises in North America and Europe. Current Softek Storage Manager 2.1 customers include AdvanceMed, CN, Harte-Hanks, Media News Group and MapInfo. The Softek early support program incorporates final version software and is designed to test the company's internal processes. Softek policy mandates at least five enterprise installations to achieve general availability status.

"Results from our early support program proved that our SRM solution further delivers on the Softek promise to simplify and optimize the management of complex, multi-vendor storage infrastructures from a common management platform to achieve better-utilization, more productive staffs, and greater application availability," said Steven Murphy, president and CEO at Softek. "We are pleased that Softek Storage Manager is showing excellent performance within the data centers of these early support program customers and that we are continuing to see strong market acceptance for our open-systems storage management solutions. The early support program for our automated storage provisioning solution, Softek Storage Provisioner, is also progressing according to plan and we expect to announce general availability status for this product in coming weeks."

Softek Storage Manager 2.1 extends the functionality of Softek Storage Manager 1.1, which received a gold medal award from Storage and SearchStorage.com as Storage Management Product of the Year for 2002, and was recognized in January by eWeek as a "Best IT Buy." Version 2.1 provides greater insight into an organization's storage infrastructure, reduces human error and minimizes application downtime through policy-based automation of labor-intensive administration tasks.

"With Softek Storage Manager 2.1 we've already deferred thousands of dollars of hardware purchases due to more efficient utilization of disk and server capacity," said Scott Hopkins, vice president of information technology planning at Harte-Hanks. "Softek's solutions have provided the capability to be more proactive in our storage management approach and thus help reduce costs associated with storage provisioning tasks. We have deployed Softek Storage Manager in our production environment here in Billerica, Mass., and are working on a broader roll out to our other data centers throughout the country."

Softek Storage Manager 2.1 is a key component of Softek Automated Storage, the company's long-term strategy of associating storage resources to business applications by automating workflows and integrating the storage services (people, processes and tools) to visualize, provision and protect data storage.

"Softek has added a number of features to Storage Manager 2.1, introducing workflow automation, enhanced policy management and auto-provisioning capabilities," said Nancy Marrone, senior analyst at Enterprise Storage Group. "Softek has also enhanced the integration between this product and the other solutions in their storage management portfolio.

Together, these solutions provide one of the most comprehensive enterprise storage management solutions on the market, covering all aspects of a user's storage management requirements."

Softek Storage Manager 2.1 supports almost all operating systems deployed in enterprise environments, including Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP, Sun Solaris 2.6,7 and 8, Hewlett-Packard HP/UX 11 and 11i, IBM AIX 4.3.3 and 5.x, Linux and OS390 and zOS.

Softek Storage Manager is priced from $39,000 and is available from the company's direct sales force, as well as its expanding network of Softek Synergy Partner solution providers.