Legato Systems Inc, the Palo Alto-based storage management firm, this week announced an alliance with CommVault Systems, under which CommVault will license Legato’s SmartMedia software for integration with its storage products. SmartMedia is a storage management application that enables multiple application servers to share the same storage devices, such as disk drives or tape drives. Under the agreement, CommVault will pay a one-off license fee to Legato to make its storage management software solution, ABARS (Automated Backup Archiving and Recovery Software) work with SmartMedia. Integrating its technology with Legato’s software will speed up the time to market for Commvault’s products, said Ed Cooper, Legato’s corporate director of strategic communications. Normally, companies have to go through a lengthy certification process to make sure their hardware works with all the leading software out there, and that can really delays time to market, he said, SmartMedia tries to overcome that by establishing a common interface. Cooper said that there are around 25 other companies, including Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Data General and Hitachi, who have made their products compatible with Legato’s storage management software.
