EMC Corp. has officially launched its upgraded Clariion and Celerra midrange storage systems adding a new storage management tool, VMware integration, and native Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) connectivity.
The company’s Unisphere management software will integrate with VMware’s vCenter platform as well as VMware vSphere and vStorage API’s for Array Integration. EMC said the management tool will not only help with virtual machine storage support, but it will also greatly reduce the amount of clicks a storage administrator needs to perform common tasks.
Jon Siegal, director of product marketing at EMC, said Unisphere will provide a single dashboard for the unified management of storage area network (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS).
“We’ve also added built-in access to an online community where customers can collaboration in discussion forums (with EMC experts and other customers),” he said.
The management tool will support existing Clariion and Celerra systems, the company added.
Along with Unisphere, EMC will add its Fully Automated Tiering (FAST) technology to the midrange systems. The FAST technology will bring caching and data compression features to the Clariion and Celerra and will enable the systems to automatically move data between various storage tiers during application workload spikes.
John Sloan, a research analyst with London, Ont.-based Info-Tech Research Group Ltd., said the announcements show EMC intention to be a “fast follower” in the market. He said the company is answering NetApp Inc. with the launch of the Unisphere management platform and Compellent Technologies Inc. with the automated tiering addition.
“One of the criticisms of EMC over the years is their pieces don’t fit together that well because they each had their own management console,” he said.
“They’re not breaking any new ground here, but they’re saying ‘we’re the leader and we’re going to stay the leader,’” Sloan added.
While EMC previewed the Unisphere and FAST updates at its annual EMC World conference in May, the company also unveiled some new features on Tuesday.
The company said it is simplifying connectivity to high speed networks by adding “plug-and-play” native FCoE support to Clariion and Celerra. The move will help boost the adoption of FCoE in the market, Siegal said.
“FCoE is about the ability to support server and storage I/O over a single cable,” he said. “The ability to have a single way to manage that through a single system is only going to help adoption. It’s all about consolidation.”
Brian Garrett, vice-president covering server, storage, data management and security at the Enterprise Strategy Group’s ESG Lab, said the FCoE integration aims to provide a path forward for IT shops that have already placed a “big bet” on fibre channel storage.
He added that the move signals EMC’s intention to bring its whole ecosystem together for organizations who want their fibre channel investments more converged.
In addition to native FCoE support, EMC announced that the Celerra VG2 and VG8 will be the first midrange storage NAS products to use Intel Corp.’s new “Westmere” technology. Siegal said customers will automatically see double the performance improvement from previously generations.
All of the product upgrades, with the exception of native FCoE support, are now available to customers. The FCoE addition will be made available in the fourth quarter of 2010.
