Center Is Key Resource for IBM's New Enterprise Data Center Strategy to Help Clients Drive Greater Business & IT Efficiency

As part of IBM's New Enterprise Data Center strategy to help customers gain greater efficiency from their IT resources, IBM today announced it has opened the world's first center specifically designed to help clients across the globe develop and implement long-term plans to manage and archive massive amounts of business information. The announcement will be made at the center's grand opening in front of more than 200 clients, business partners and local dignitaries in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The archiving and retention of information - including documents, email, video, audio, medical files, etc. - is one of the highest storage growth segments today according to the Enterprise Strategy Group. Worldwide digital archive capacity is expected to increase at a nearly 60 percent compound annual growth rate by 2012 which is an 800 percent total increase in archive capacity over a five year period of time . To address this demand, IBM opened its Global Archive Solutions Center in Mexico's "Silicon Valley." Under one roof, IBM's team of archive subject matter consultants can simulate real-world customer environments and present solutions in real time using IBM software and storage technologies.

Today, organizations are facing a sharp increase in the amount of digital content that must be managed with new compliance and discovery requirements. Worldwide file, database and email archive capacity will each skyrocket at an a compound annual growth rate of up to 73 percent - altogether totaling nearly two trillion full filing cabinets of information .

Organizations are looking to keep this data secure, control costs when seeking information and manage risks. Failure to comply with government regulations can cost millions of dollars in fines. As a result, effective management strategies are critical to retain the most important corporate data and identify the most essential technology available in records management, image, email archiving and e-discovery.

With rising energy prices, data centers are also running out of power and space and IBM's archive solutions are helping clients move to a New Enterprise Data Center model by focusing on best practices for virtualization, energy efficiency, service management, security and cloud computing. With IBM, clients can benefit from blended archive solutions that bring together disk and tape that help enable the rapid deployment of new IT services to support future business growth.

"Incredible data growth is driving the need for data backup, archiving and replication as businesses must protect, recover, and retrieve information. By establishing the first world-class briefing center solely focused on archiving, we are helping organizations manage their information infrastructure in a complete way," said Andy Monshaw, General Manager, IBM System Storage. "IBM is the only company in the world that has the thought leadership, broad base of skills, proven capabilities and technology to deliver a dedicated archive solutions center to our clients that will help them plan, integrate and access their information infrastructure."

Innovations from IBM Research help bring together the industry's most complete storage solutions today. As unstructured and replicated data continue to double year after year, IBM's Research Centers around the world are working to build systems that manage data for cost, security and compliance through policies controlled by the customer . IBM's Haifa Research Lab is leading in emerging archive technologies such as long term digital preservation.