Storage Wars: Veritas Launches PR Blitz

In a three-horse race with EMC Corp. and IBM to lock down the top spot in the network storage space,
Mountain View, CA-based Veritas went on the PR offensive Monday,
announcing a slew of deals with some of the biggest names in the tech
sector.

The barrage of announcements from Veritas comes on the same day market
leader EMC Corp. took the wraps off Cente
ra, a new strategy for addressing fixed storage.

It also comes on the heels of IBM’s three
-pronged strategy to embrace Linux technologies and standards-based
management interfaces.

Clearly looking to share the limelight with EMC and Big Blue, Veritas
announced separate transactions with Siebel Systems, Inc., Cisco Systems,
MaXXan Systems, Inc. and Rhapsody Networks, all geared towards the network
storage sector.

Veritas said the deal with Siebel would integrate its
storage software with Siebel 7, the latest release of the company’s
eBusiness applications. The software integration promises improved
interoperability, management, and reliability of data-intensive
applications. Veritas touted the Siebel partnership as validation for its
software.

With Cisco Systems , Veritas said it has entered in a
strategic relationship to aim for joint delivery of next-generation storage
networking software.

The two sides plan to combine resources on the development of storage
software aimed at making storing, retrieving, and protecting critical data
across widely distributed environments more efficient and cost-effective.

In yet another announcement Monday morning, Veritas said it would work with
San Jose, California-based MaXXan Systems, Inc. to enable the delivery of
storage virtualization and network-attached storage software as applications
to be deployed directly from MaXXan’s storage network platform.

Under terms of the pact, MaXXan would distribute and support the Veritas
ServPoint SAN and Veritas ServPoint NAS products as tested software
applications on its storage network.

“By enabling both block level storage virtualization and file oriented NAS
functionality to be delivered and managed as services of MaXXan’s storage
network infrastructure, deployment of enterprise storage networks will be
simpler, more cost-effective, and reliable,” Veritas said. In addition, by
delivering the software portion of a NAS filer as a service of the SAN,
customers will be able to leverage their investments in block oriented Fibre
Channel storage subsystems for use with file oriented applications as well.

Other announcements in the public relations blitz by Veritas include: