HOPKINTON, MA -- EMC Corporation today announced that The Army National Guard has purchased more than 200 terabytes of EMC networked storage systems and software and services to automate and streamline administrative functions and increase focus on war fighter operations. The National Guard will implement EMC storage area networks (SANs) in more than 50 data centers across the United States and four U.S. territories to allow for dramatically more open and efficient information management. Each Guard data center will deploy EMC ESN Manager software, a key product in EMC's AutoIS strategy, to achieve more centralized and more efficient management of both EMC storage and non-EMC storage such as Compaq, Dell and Xiotech solutions. Lawrence P. Borkowski, The Army National Guard's Chief of Automation and Plans, said, "The Army National Guard is fast-forwarding our longstanding commitment to streamlining administrative operations and focusing more of our resources on military missions and emergency situations facing our country. EMC's networked storage systems and software will help us mobilize Guard forces more quickly and efficiently because our critical information will be more available and better protected than ever before." "EMC's AutoIS strategy represents a major step in our quest to provide more efficient and effective storage management," said Borkowski. "Because we're talking about more than 50 different data centers, our environment is extremely diverse - whether it be storage, servers or networking devices. We rely on EMC's extensive interoperability testing to ensure every component works in harmony. For the first time, we will be able to centrally manage and control constantly changing data requirements across different vendors' storage systems by utilizing EMC software." EMC Global Services consultants are leading the design and implementation of EMC SANs in each of the Army National Guard's 54 local data centers. The SANs will satisfy the storage needs of personnel records management, finance, logistics, contracts, electronic mail and other applications. The SANs - based on EMC Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems - will provide storage for Hewlett-Packard, Dell and other servers. Each Guard location will use products from the EMC ControlCenter family, including ESN Manager, as well as TimeFinder and PowerPath, to efficiently manage and protect its growing information assets. "The value of uninterrupted access to our information continues to go up dramatically as we automate more of our administrative functions," Borkowski said. "The advanced reliability of EMC networked storage and EMC's business continuity software is helping create new layers of data security throughout our infrastructure. Each National Guard data center will use EMC's TimeFinder software to create a complete backup copy of our production systems without having to bring them down for maintenance." Borkowski also noted the tremendous value of EMC's worldwide, 24-hour Global Services infrastructure. "The support EMC provides is extremely valuable. Some of the industry's most knowledgeable and experienced storage professionals work at EMC, and they are available to assist us around the clock with any issues or questions we have." The Army National Guard purchased the EMC technology through Northrop Grumman Corporation's (NYSE: NOC) Information Technology (IT) sector, the prime contractor in the project. "Nearly every agency is looking for a specialized storage solution and trusted advisors to implement it, that simply doesn't come prepackaged," says Rene LaVigne, president, Computing Systems, Northrop Grumman IT. "So we're always looking for innovative ways to build absolutely trustworthy solutions that suit the specific needs of our customers." Prior to this latest purchase, the Army National Guard, headquartered in Arlington, Va., standardized its operations on an EMC SAN to provide centralized storage to Amdahl OS 390, Hewlett-Packard N&L Class, HP-UX, Compaq, Dell, Windows NT and Windows 2000 servers and operating systems. Frank Hauck, EMC's Executive Vice President of Customer Operations, said, "The Army National Guard is empowering its regional forces with an advanced storage infrastructure that elevates information access to a central component of key operations. EMC is proud to be providing the Army National Guard with the storage expertise and technology it needs to ensure there is a rapid, uninterrupted flow of information throughout the organization."