EMC Corporation has announced software enhancements to its EMC Centera content addressed storage (CAS) systems. The enhancements include new virtual pooling and remote replication software which will improve Centera to better work with a central archive which typically collects and stores the fixed content of multiple business applications for secure, long-term retention, fast retrieval and overall business continuity, EMC said.

Through the software, Centera can be used as the repository for important e-mail, documents and images, gathered from across their enterprise as part of an information lifecycle management (ILM) strategy.

Individual departments, applications and the entire organization can now create new virtual pools of data depending on content type. The pools can be created as needed. Each pool, as well as the entire Centera, is searchable via the system's Centera Seek software for the retrieval of secure digital content. Additionall, the EMC Centera Chargeback Reporter software provides for internal utilization-based billing and reporting for each pool, EMC said.

The new replication features, which work with the virtual pools, allows for remote replication of only the pools that the customer wants replicated. This allows efficient, application-by-application business continuity planning.