EMC World: 10 Storage Products For Virtual, Cloud Environments

10 New Storage Products From EMC World

Like EMC itself, the recently-concluded EMC World conference in Las Vegas offered a wide variety of ways to best deploy storage and the cloud. A big part of that is new hardware and software products which are aimed at either increasing performance or increasing the ease of managing storage while, in many cases, making data more ready to be brought into cloud environments.

For a look at some of the latest storage hardware or software exhibited at EMC World, just turn the page.

Anobit: SSDs Ready For The Enterprise

Israel-based Anobit Technologies used EMC World to demonstrate the performance of its Genesis solid state drives (SSDs) as a way of showing they are ready for enterprise users. The Genesis drives, based on multi-level cell (MLC) NAND technology, feature a performance rating of over 30,000 IOPS (random read/write). The drives also meet an endurance benchmark of 10 complete, random disk rewrites per day for five years, the company said. The Genesis series SSDs are based on the company's own MSP (Memory Signal Processing) technology, which Anobit said gives MLC the ability to work in high duty cycle applications.

Arrow ECS: SMB Cloud Solution Bundles

Distributor Arrow ECS launched cloud storage configurations which combine VMware virtualization software and management tools, EMC's entry-level VNXe unified storage appliance, servers, and integrated Brocade networking technology. The Arrow CloudTrack Migration Solutions are targeted at helping solution providers easily address such issues as server and storage consolidation, high availability in VMware environments, scalability, and automation. Arrow ECS is also offering solution providers in-depth sales and technical training, certification programs, hands-on solutions demonstrations, and co-op promotional programs to help sell the CloudTrack solutions, as well as its Arrow Fusion professional services team to help partners with assessments, implementations, and migrations for these configurations.

ATTO: Connecting Mac And Windows Devices To EMC Storage

ATTO Technology, Amherst, N.Y., showed its Celerity 8-Gbip-per-second and 4-Gbps Fibre Channel host bus adaptors, which the company claimed to be the only connectivity solution that allows both Mac OS X and Windows workstations to directly utilize scalable, high-availability enterprise EMC storage solutions. The HBAs, which were certified as EMC E-Lab tested, come in single, dual, and quad channel configurations, and provide multiple redundant paths to EMC storage for high-availability access to data. ATTO also showcased its EMC Select Xtend SAN iSCSI initiator for attaching and load-balancing storage via an Ethernet-based network.

Brocade: 16-Gbps Fibre Channel

Brocade used EMC World to introduce its new family of 16-Gbps Fibre Channel backbone devices, switches, and host bus adaptors (HBAs). Included was the Brocade DCX 8510, a new SAN backbone which supports up to 384 16-Gbps ports and a total of 8.2 Tbps of chassis bandwidth. The DCX 8510 supports native Fibre Channel connections with encryption and compression between data centers up to 60 miles apart. Also new is the Brocade 6510 switch, a 1U device which supports 24, 36, or 48 Fibre Channel ports which can be configured for 2-, 4-, 8-, or 16-Gbps. The 6510 supports in-flight encryption and compression.

Ciena: Interoperability With EMC Cloud Storage

Linthicum, Md.-based Ciena demonstrated its networking equipment's interoperability with EMC’s VPLEX Metro and VPLEX GEO virtualization solutions for enterprise cloud storage over metro and long-haul distances. Ciena and EMC jointly qualified VPLEX Metro to work with select Ciena’s ActivSpan 4200 and ActivSpan 5200 Advanced Services Platforms and its ActivFlex 6500 Packet-Optical Platform. Ciena is also beta testing its Enterprise Services Optimization Module (ESOM) and Carrier Ethernet Service Delivery solutions to support EMC’s VPLEX GEO over extended distances. Ciena also showcased solution integration with EMC’s Ionix Server Manager and Ionix Network Configuration Manager, which provides an end-to-end view of EMC configurations including Ciena network elements.

Emulex: New Converged Fibre Channel And Ethernet Controller

Emulex used EMC World to introduce its XE201 I/O Controller, which it termed the industry's first quad-port converged fabric controller unifying Fibre Channel and Ethernet. The XE201 I/O Controller offers OEMs the choice of 16-Gbps Fibre Channel, 10-Gbps Ethernet (10-GbE) with protocol support for RDMA over Converged Enhanced Ethernet (RoCEE), Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and iSCSI, as well as for 40-Gbps Ethernet (40-GbE) connectivity. The XE201 I/O Controller supports up to four 8-Gbps Fibre Channel, two 16-Gbps Fibre Channel, four 10-GbE, and one 40-Gbps Ethernet (40-GbE) port to provide flexibility and scalability for expanding data centers.

F5 Networks: Bringing Files And Objects Together In Clouds

Seattle-based F5 Networks showed how its ARX Cloud Extender, working with its F5 ARX file virtualization solutions, lets data flow automatically, securely, and non-disruptively from file-based storage platforms to EMC's object-based Atmos storage systems as a way of accelerating both public and private cloud deployments without having to change current storage architectures or strategies. The solutions provide a way to automatically identify and move appropriate files to cloud architectures based on the Atmos platform, and present a unified view of data stored across local file storage and remote object storage in a private or public cloud.

Index Engines: Indexing Search Data For Data Domain

Index Engines, Holmdel, N.J., showcased its Collection Engine appliance for indexing backup images from such applications as NetBackup, Tivoli Storage Manager, and NetWorker to EMC's Data Domain backup appliance so they can be searched and analyzed for business relevance. These searches can be high-level metadata such as user mailboxes, or detailed queries based on file or email content, location and date ranges. Once the relevant set of data is identified within the backup image, it can be extracted into a Collection image and written to the Data Domain platform where it can be deduped and retained for long-term access.

Iomega: Channel-Friendly SMB NAS

Iomega, which is owned by EMC, introduced new channel-friendly versions of its SMB desktop and rack mount NAS appliances, including its products which let solution providers choose and install the hard drives, and the first to provide an SSD option. Iomega unveiled two new desktop NAS appliances based on dual-core Intel Atom processors, and the StorCenter px4-300r, a 1U rack mount unit based on Intel's dual-core Celeron processor with redundant power supplies and room for up to four drives.

Virtensys: Improving Virtual I/O Management

Virtensys, Beaverton, Ore., introduced its Virtensys Virtual I/O VM Plugin, which allows virtual machine administrators to manage the vendor's VIO-4000 series of I/O virtualization appliances within their native management context for their virtual data center environments. This allows virtual machine administrators to define "virtualized" I/O interfaces for both 10-GgE and 8-Gbps Fibre Channel connectivity via a wizard-driven I/O provisioning utility. This becomes important, according to Virtensys, as companies move to increase their "virtual-to-physical" ratios but find themselves hampered by I/O-starved physical servers and traditional I/O deployment complexity.