EMC Corp, Hopkinton, Massachusetts, has released the 5000 family of Symmetrix Enterprise Storage Platforms. The new offering can store mainframe and open systems data from Unix, MVS and personal computers on the same Symmetrix 5000 Integrated Cache Disk Array storage system. It stores data from mainframe and open systems in the same cache, and can function as a single storage system for customers migrating from mainframes to open systems. Its cache memory services CPU and input-output requests using algorithms which predict what data is likely to be accessed on the basis of past sequential requests. Symmetrix loads data into the cache on a continuous real-time basis. It has a remote data facility enabling users to mirror data between two Symmetrix arrays on data centres miles apart. The ESP 5000 family can store from 34Gb to 544Gb data, with the ESP 5500 capable of storing 1Tb in remote environments. The Symmetrix ESP 5000 family includes support for all IBM and IBM-compatible mainframes through both Escon and parallel channel connections, and support for all major open RISC, personal computer local network and AS/400 servers through Fast/Wide SCSI interfaces. Software costs from $5,000 to $15,000 for ESP users. Parallel mainframe connections and eight SCSI connections costs from $504,000. The ESP 5500 with the same costs around $3.6m. Hewlett-Packard Co and AT&T Global Information Solutions will each market and sell EMC’s Symmetrix 3000 for their Unix servers. AT&T says it will take them OEM as the AT&T Global 6272 and 6275 storage systems for its WorldMark enterprise server systems.