EMC, Nortel Intro New Continuity Service

EMC and Nortel will collaborate on new service to help enterprises use optical metropolitan area networks and wide area networks for remote data mirroring.

The storage and networking companies announced the partnership today at the Storage Networking World trade show in Orlando.

They believe the service will appeal to large corporations that need to retrieve data quickly in case of an emergency. EMC and Nortel have 200 joint customers. Many of them are in financial services or health care — industries that are now required by federal regulations to keep and maintain electronic data for longer periods than ever before.

The new offering, Business Continuity over Optical Networks, is now available. It includes a business continuity assessment to help customers determine the optimal storage and connectivity requirements to meet their recovery goals.

“EMC and Nortel Networks are addressing one of the biggest pain points for customers – configuring their infrastructure to meet their business continuity requirements,” said Sterling Perrin, senior research analyst IDC.

Nortel calls today’s agreement with EMC a critical step in the company’s partnership. A spokeswoman was not immediately available for pricing information on the service.