Internet filtering appliance vendor 8e6 Technologies and network-attached storage appliance vendor Procom Technology Inc. said this week they''ll make their products work together to help enterprises simplify compliance processes that call for retention of some Web data for three years.

8e6''s Enterprise Reporter 3.0 is a dedicated reporting appliance that processes needed historical data quickly. Procom brings to the alliance its NetForce appliance, with as much as six terabytes of capacity, along with storage-management capabilities.

Thanks to the prevalence of Web surfing, companies already have put in place Web-content filtering for privacy and security reasons. But the systems that perform that filtering make it hard to retrieve information when files need to be pulled for regulators or judges. The 8e6/Procom alliance aims to make that process less cumbersome. Procom helps sort out what''s been filtered with a combination of hardware and software; Fibre Channel hardware moves the data quickly, and storage-management software clarifies the timing, usage, and importance of the information.

Industry analyst Brad Nisbet of IDC said Procom has had the right technology focus, but has let that focus diminish its investment in marketing. "This 8e6 agreement should work," he says, "because Procom needs to broaden channel capabilities and partnerships."