16 March 2010

Xploite plc

("Xploite" or "the Group")

Storage Fusion signs agreement with Unisys to help clients optimise

data-centre efficiency and eliminate expensive storage costs

Xploite plc (AIM: XPT), the operator and aggregator of strategic and high-growth IT services businesses, announces that Storage Fusion, its Storage Resource Analysis (SRA) subsidiary, has signed an agreement with Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS) to supply a global Storage Resource Analysis (SRA) service.  This technology is designed to help companies optimise data-centre efficiency and eliminate expensive storage costs.

Through this service, businesses can use a portal to access a free headline report on their system utilisation, capacity allocation and disk tiering. The report includes an environmental module that shows power consumed by storage hardware down to individual disk drives.

This intelligence can help businesses reduce their power consumption by 50%, improve storage utilisation by 30% and potentially save millions of pounds in annual IT costs. The intelligence will also equip CIOs with the information they need to plan the storage architecture that is right for their organisations, cut operational and unnecessary capital expenses and maximise the performance of their storage systems.  

Before the SRA headline report became available, information technology research and advisory company Gartner, Inc. noted that it could "take weeks or even months to create a storage strategy that reflects organisational goals."  Valdis Filks, Research Director for Gartner, notes that storage management has become an increasingly complex and critical competency: "Organisations need to deal with soaring amounts of data on a tightening budget, while legal and corporate governance issues can complicate the processes and infrastructure. The data stored in the storage infrastructure is often the lifeblood of an organisation and, therefore, a significant and critical resource." 

Unique Service Based on Research into Users' Most Pressing Concerns

The SRA solution enables organisations to revolutionise the way they evaluate and optimise their storage environments. Using an innovative Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model, the self-service portal can deliver detailed analytics within hours by cutting through the complexity of heterogeneous storage environments.

This unique Unisys service is the result of a Unisys survey, published in 2009, into customer storage challenges. Unisys interviewed 80 leading European business managers and CIOs, each responsible for more than 400 terabytes (TB) of data, from a wide cross-section of industries including the financial, public sector, utilities and transportation sectors.

According to the survey, more than 40% of businesses have limited visibility, or almost none, into their existing data storage needs, and almost half struggle to forecast storage capacity. By contrast, best-practice storage utilisation is typically around 75%. Based on direct feedback from the multiple large organisations surveyed, Unisys confirmed that only 20% of businesses achieve that level of utilisation or above.

Nikki Wilton, director of information and data management, Unisys, commented, "Most organisations struggle with storage complexity and cost because they don't know what they have or what they really need. Consequently, they often try to manage growth by just buying more. Even more alarming, some run the very real risk of data loss through a simple lack of visibility. For example, one large public-sector organisation that signed up for our headline report discovered that large amounts of data were unprotected due to simple configuration issues. Just imagine the reputational damage if the problem had remained undetected and data had been lost as a result."

Wilton continued, "The tools available in the vendor community do a great job of day to day management, but none of them can easily produce a report of this quality which pinpoints immediate areas for concern and suggests an effective plan for the future."

Ian Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Xploite commented: "We are delighted that Unisys selected Storage Fusion as a partner to provide its customers with a global Storage Resource Analysis service. Storage Fusion was already experiencing the benefits of exploiting the commercial power of SaaS through the streamlined pricing strategy it implemented last August. This agreement has accelerated that growth and underpins the benefits of that change in strategy."

Enquiries:

Notes to Editors

About Storage Fusion

Storage Fusion's Storage Resource Analysis (SRA) automates the processes associated with storage

analytics.

Storage Allocation typically involves spending countless hours or even days extracting disparate data for from multiple management tools, which is an inefficient, inaccurate process which cannot be scaled for large deployments.  SRA provides an interactive "single pane of glass" delivered via a secure web portal making it a powerful decision tool.

SRA brings both business intelligence and automated administration analysis to storage management. It allows managers to gain real transparency of their storage assets and allows administrators true insight into how their heterogeneous storage estate is installed, configured, tiered, allocated, virtualised and assigned.

About Unisys

Unisys is a worldwide information technology company. We provide a portfolio of IT services, software, and technology that solves critical problems for clients. We specialise in helping clients secure their operations, increase the efficiency and utilisation of their data centers, enhance support to their end users and constituents, and modernise their enterprise applications. To provide these services and solutions, we bring together offerings and capabilities in outsourcing services, systems integration and consulting services, infrastructure services, maintenance services, and high-end server technology. With approximately 26,000 employees, Unisys serves commercial organisations and government agencies throughout the world. For more information, visit www.unisys.com.