TAMPA, Florida, April 3 /PRNewswire/ --

- Provides Customers With Advanced New Content Quota Management Technology

NORTHERN, global providers of flexible, easy to administer storage resource management software solutions, today makes two important announcements. First, the release of a new version of Northern Storage Suite that is tailored to the needs of EMC(R) Celerra(R) IP storage system customers and second, the availability of this new version through EMC Select. This will enable customers to purchase state-of-the-art content quota management software from Northern directly from EMC and its partners. EMC Select helps customers easily acquire all the required components that comprise an information infrastructure.

EMC will offer 'Northern Storage Suite for EMC', a new version of Northern's best-in-class content quota management and storage resource management solution that leverages EMC storage technology.

"With EMC Select, our overarching goal is to make it easier for our customers to deploy high-performance storage solutions to meet their business objectives," said Justin Bartinoski, Manager of the EMC Select program. "By combining Northern's technology with EMC's leading systems, software and services, we will be able to provide our customers with additional advance IP storage capabilities."

Northern Storage Suite for EMC gives companies the opportunity to extend their information lifecycle management (ILM) strategy; integrating scalable and high-performance content quota management. Major changes such as the ability to lock quotas without the need to manipulate security metadata serve to deliver enterprise-class content quota management functionality.

Inclusion in EMC Select validates the market success of Northern's software solution and reinforces Northern's commitment to continue to enhance the product to meet changing customer needs. It also marks a significant milestone in the company history.

"Northern has never been in a better position to deliver the benefits of active content management to a global audience," said Thomas Vernersson, Northern's CEO. "Our membership in EMC Select and the strength of our new technology will combine to resolve a long standing challenge for a great number of companies -- realizing efficient storage management at the user level."

ABOUT NORTHERN STORAGE SUITE

Northern Storage Suite is a software solution that enables organizations to manage user-generated data -- making efficient storage usage a part of business culture. Specifically, Northern Storage Suite delivers:

-- Storage Quotas: Hard control over directory size and usage by user, or soft control for monitored growth and enhanced accountability -- File Blocking: Preventing specific file types from being saved, extension-based real-time scanning and scheduled binary-level scanning preserve system performance -- User Self-management: Distribution of interactive user-centric reports that detail an individual user's largest, oldest, duplicate and media files -- Enterprise-wide Reporting: Identification of how resources are currently being used and how they will be used in the future; regular updates, analysis and strategy recommendations -- Storage Chargeback: Billing and reporting to spread cost awareness and encourage storage efficiency

Northern Storage Suite for EMC will be generally available in May from EMC and its partners through EMC Select.

ABOUT NORTHERN

Northern is an international software company specializing in the development of reliable, flexible, and easy to use storage resource management software solutions. The company serves a global market through its five bases of operations, Tampa [US], Stockholm [Sweden], London [UK], Biarritz [France], and Munich [Germany]. Over 28,000 organizations in 56 different countries and more than half of the companies on Fortune Global 100 use Northern software solutions to take control of their storage situation.

Northern Storage Suite is available through resellers worldwide, authorized distributors and from Northern directly. Customers in North America should contact Northern [U.S. Operations] at +1-800-881-4950 or sales@northern.net. Customers in other parts of the world should visit Northern's Reseller page on www.northern.net to find their local Northern software supplier, or contact Northern [European Operations] at +46-8-457-50-00.

EMC and Celerra are registered trademarks of EMC Corporation

Web site: http://www.northern.net

Anders Paulsson, VP U.S. Operations, NORTHERN, +1-800-881-4950, anders.paulsson@northern.net; or Charles Epstein, Public Relations, BackBone +1-561-470-0965, che@backboneinc.com, for NORTHERN