In addition to its new SAN Advisor module, EMC Corp.s EMC ControlCenter 5.2 storage management suite has gained several enhancements that bolster EMCs flagship management platform.
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Filling a major void from the last EMC ControlCenter release that eWEEK Labs reviewed, EMC ControlCenter 5.2 now includes agent support for Red Hat Inc.s Red Hat Linux and Novell Inc.s SuSE Linux distributions. Agents provide EMC ControlCenter with much of the information it needs to detect problems and monitor storage usage, so the new Linux agent is a welcome addition.
ControlCenter 5.2s StorageScope File Level Reporter SRM (Storage Resource Management) enabled us to track storage usage at the file level in order to discover how much storage was being used to house specific files, such as MP3s or other media types.
StorageScope FLR SRM currently runs as a separate application but will be integrated with the rest of the EMC ControlCenter suite in a future update, according to EMC officials.
EMCs Automated Resource Manager, which eases the process of allocating and presenting storage to servers, has also improved during the last two years. The new deallocation wizard makes it easy to return storage to the SAN (storage area network) pool when servers get decommissioned or when applications are migrated.
EMC ARM sports an improved zone policy wizard, which we used to configure EMC ARM to create zone names based on key parameters such as the types of servers managed and the applications they were running. In the past, EMC ARM created random names for zones, which were difficult to remember and manage.
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