LAS VEGAS – EMC Corp. shifted away from dataanalytics and toward the cloud on Tuesday with an update to its VPlex virtualstorage system.
One year after announcing the VPlex Metro platform — which allowed companies to syncand relocate I/O data between data centres less than 100 kilometres apart — EMC unveiledVPlex Geo to target IT shops looking for longer distance storage federation.The new offering, available as server software or in a physical appliance, wasshowcased during the second day of EMC World 2011 in Las Vegas.
The VPlex system, which is geared toward allowing data mobility andavailability, supports EMC and non-EMC storage systems and federates the datainto a single virtual storage pool.
Brian Gallagher, president of EMC’s enterprise storage division, the newVPlex hardware and software can now reliably move thousands of terabytes ofstored data over thousands of miles.
“Last year we demonstrated moving 26 VMs over 26 miles,” he said, adding thatthe new VPlex system is ideal for private and hybrid cloud adoption. “Now wecan move 2,600 VMs over 2,600 miles of distance. And we can do this with highintensive workloads without disruption of services.”
In addition to helping customers balance workloads, EMC said VPlex can help ITdepartments shore up their disaster recovery plans through automatic failoverpolicies.
Eric Sato, manager of server administration at Cancer Treatment Centers ofAmerica, said implementing VPlex has let his organization easily “afford a SANfailure and still stay up and running.”
EMC also hinted at a global version of the VPlex system, which Gallagher saidcould be available within the next 18 to 24 months. The yet-to-be-announcedsystem would enable movement of data between data centres spread across theworld.
Rounding out the storage-focused day two of EMC World, the company hyped a trioof addition to its EMC VNX unified storage system. The updates include anintegration with Microsoft SharePoint, a cloud “tiering” appliance and newGoogle search functionality.
“At the end of the day, people care less and less about the infrastructure,”said Rich Napolitano, president of EMC’s unified storage division. “It’s allabout the apps.”
With the SharePoint integration, users will be able to seamless manage theirstorage needs from the app level, he said.
To manage unstructured file-based data, EMC said its new Cloud TieringAppliance — which will be available in Q3 of this year — willlet storage administrators set specific polices for specific types of files,such as JPEGs, DOCs and MP3s. The policies can be set to automatically tierthese files to the cloud after they become inactive for a certain period oftime, Napolitano said.
Closing out the VNX announcements, EMC said its Google Search Appliance willdramatically boost the searching and indexing capabilities of the unifiedstorage platform.
Napolitano said the integration will accelerate the performance of search by afactor of “10 to 100 times.”