EMC Powers Up Smaller SANs

Although EMC Corp.s new software offerings dont break a lot of new ground, they clearly show that EMC is serious about being a software vendor and wants to reach out to small and midsize businesses.

EMC VisualSAN 3.0 and EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9, both of which shipped last month, dont have the muscle of EMCs enterprise-class Control Center storage manager, but they have enough capabilities to appeal to price-sensitive customers that dont necessarily need the latest and greatest technology.

Organizations also neednt have a closet full of EMC hardware to reap the benefits of these solutions. From a management point of view, however, EMC VisualSAN does manage EMCs storage systems better than other vendors systems.

Both of these products functioned well in eWEEK Labs tests, but theyre not really a suite. In addition, both seem more like two newly acquired products than established EMC offerings. In fact, EMC VisualSRM is built on technology EMC obtained from its Astrum Software Corp. acquisition, and EMC VisualSAN is derived from the companys Prisa Networks Inc. acquisition.

Competing management suites from Veritas Software Corp. and Fujitsu Software Technology Corp., as well as EMCs own Control Center, have common links between their respective tools to make management easier.

As development of EMCs new products continues, we expect to see them function better together.

Next page: EMC VisualSAN 3.0