Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

MTI AWARDED ENTERPRISE STORAGE PROJECT BY FRANCE TELECOM

MTI Technology Corp (MTIC), a leading provider of enterprise storage solutions for more than two decades, announced it has been tasked by France Telecom to consolidate storage from its 1,400 servers into a storage area network (SAN). The servers utilize 225 terabytes of open systems storage and up to 60 terabytes of mainframe storage. One of the world's largest telecommunications companies, France Telecom employs more than 200,000 people, including some 4,000 in its IT division, which has worked with MTI previously. The new project is part of an overall consolidation of France Telecom's sprawling IT environment, which includes multiple operating systems and platforms. When completed, about 100 UNIX and NT servers will handle the more than 400 simultaneous applications that are modified daily for such purposes as billing, human resources, and customer relationship management. According to Paul-Henri Oltra, director of engineering for France Telecom's IT organization, the objective for consolidation was to simplify overhead and substantially cut costs by reducing the number of small servers and direct-attached storage.

"The situation was that our nationwide services all managed their own servers," said Oltra. "Little by little, we were asked to manage these environments, and we recognized the need to consolidate servers and build a workable storage architecture. We knew that this is not achieved by attaching disks one by one." Thus far in the project, MTI has installed three of its Vivant series scalable SAN storage servers, with a combined capacity of 28 terabytes. The Vivant SAN solutions will provide France Telecom with non-stop access to data and the ability to respond quickly to changing business requirements by non-disruptively adding new applications, new servers, more capacity and more storage processing power when needed. Oltra said that France Telecom considered other major storage providers but that MTI presented a better value proposition, built around its Vivant SAN solutions, its celebrated SRM (storage resource management) expertise, and a more economical implementation.

"MTI was the only company that guaranteed to fulfill our formidable storage needs and to meet the challenges of so many servers supporting varying platforms and operating systems," he added.

About MTI Technology Corp

MTI's mission is to be at the forefront of developing and delivering storage solutions to customers through innovation, customer feedback and best practice. A premier provider of enterprise storage products for more than 20 years, MTI Technology Corp develops, integrates and manufactures high-performance, high-availability storage products for mid-range to Global 2000 companies worldwide. MTI also services select third-product hardware and software, and its Professional Services organization provides planning, consulting and implementation support for storage products from other leading vendors. Headquartered in Anaheim, California, MTI may be reached by telephone at 800-999-9MTI (toll free) or 714-970-0300, fax: 714-693-2256.