VMware, Iomega Hook Up on New Storage for the 'V-Curious'

LONDON—VMware and Iomega, cousins to each other under mothership EMC, co-launched a new shared-storage system Feb. 24 for small businesses and remote corporate offices and/or workgroups.

The new configurations link VMware's ESX and/or ESXi hypervisors with Iomega's newest 1TB and 2TB spinning-disk storage systems for the first time.

Iomega and VMware made the announcement at the VMWorld Europe 2009 expo and conference at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes.

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A resulting starter-type system—comprising any standard $1,500 server to house the hypervisor, an installation of the basic (and freely downloadable) ESXi software, and a $400 Iomega 2TB StorCenter machine—can cost under $2,000.

Of course, if the full-service VMware ESX hypervisor is selected, then regular VMware licensing costs will be included. VMware requires one license per processor and allows up to six cores per processor.

"This is the kind of interoperability of resources [within the EMC corporate body] we talked about back when Iomega joined EMC [in June 2008]," Iomega CEO Jonathan Huberman told eWEEK.

Iomega, long known for personal disk storage products such as the Zip and Jaz drives, continues to develop new products that are physically smaller—yet bigger in capacity—and cheaper.

Last fall, the company introduced the StorCenter ix2, a 1TB-capacity network storage drive with a desktop footprint that the company describes as "smaller than a large dictionary." The price: $300.  The 2GB version, as noted above, is only slightly larger and costs $100 more.

"These are market-based prices," Huberman told eWEEK at the time. "It's ridiculous how cheap these things are, but it is what it is. A great value for the consumer."

The ix2 includes built-in support for Bluetooth, UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) certified devices—even an integrated iTunes server.

The new configurations, which will be sold through the Iomega channels and the EMC Velocity program, are designed for "virtualization-curious" SMBs and midrange companies, as well as remote offices of larger corporations, Huberman said.

"Really, you can spend $5,000 to $10,000 to $15,000 for a comparable system, but why would you want to?" Huberman said. "It's another plus that you can just add incremental storage later, as needed.

"This is by far the cheapest way to get a full VMware-certified, SAN setup, and get it up and running—truthfully—in either three or four clicks, depending on which storage box you buy."