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

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EMC VisualSAN 3.0 is not a revolutionary offering. However, the fact that it is fairly easy to use and powerful—considering its focus on smaller SANs (storage area networks)—makes it an attractive solution that could be helpful for IT managers with small SAN implementations, even if they dont have EMC hardware in their data centers.

The basic zoning, network visualization and configuration management that EMC Visual-SAN brings to the table will help IT managers with smaller budgets make their SANs easier to manage. VisualSANs relatively low $6,000 entry price also makes it an attractive solution, although it doesnt have the automation-type functionality found in more powerful (and expensive) products such as InterSAN Inc.s Pathline solution.

One of the more impressive features we tested in EMC VisualSAN is its new Configuration Manager tool, which allowed us to take snapshots of our storage configurations (drivers, firmware revisions and so on). Given that the Fibre Channel interoperability of devices like host bus adapters and RAID units is sensitive to configuration changes, this tool is very useful. IT managers can compare the last snapshot of a working configuration with a malfunctioning one to discover what went wrong.

Configuration Manager can also show devices that have left the SAN, thus helping IT staff find devices that might have crashed or have connectivity problems.

Using Configuration Manager, its also possible to quickly replicate successful configuration settings and make sure that new implementations are set up correctly. In the future, we hope the Configuration Manager tool gains the ability to track the authors of configuration changes (a must for larger environments), but as it stands, this feature is plenty effective.

EMC VisualSANs zoning capabilities were fairly easy to use in tests. Although we cant say that their implementation is very different from the zoning tools we found on most major Fibre Channel switches, the tool was easy to navigate and use.

EMC VisualSANs Performance Manager tool is useful for tracking the performance of SAN links. We could easily see congestion points in a test SAN and figure out which spots could eventually become problem areas when traffic grew.

Performance Manager is user-configurable, and we could easily set warning thresholds for when the tool should highlight problem links.

Next page: EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9

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Like its SAN management stablemate, EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9 is an innovative storage management system and one that will probably be most beneficial for small and midsize businesses.

EMCs lower-end SRM (storage resource management) package, VisualSRM 1.5.9, offers a nice set of easy-to-use tools that can be implemented without a lot of complications.

EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9, which starts at $2,000, enables organizations to get a better idea of how their storage space is being used, the rate at which demand is growing and who is responsible for consumption.

EMCs VisualSRM 1.5.9 is less proactive than competing solutions, such as Fujitsu Softecs $25,000 Storage Manager, because it does not have file-blocking capabilities, quota management or auto-storage provisioning features.

However, for low-end and midrange shops that need basic reporting and dont have a lot of storage systems or capacity to manage, EMCs solution does the job.

EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9 works with Novell Inc. NetWare, Unix and Windows platforms and can communicate with Oracle Corp.s Oracle8i and 9i, Microsoft Corp.s SQL Server 2000 and Exchange, and Sybase Inc.s Sybase 12.5 to assess their storage needs. In future revisions, we hope to see support for other widely used applications, including IBMs Lotus Notes.

For its database back end, EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9 can use Oracle 8i, Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Desktop Engine.

In tests, EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9s new dashboard-style, browser-based interface proved easy to use, featuring above-average customization capabilities. For example, we could add a calendar interface to help schedule management activities and add other useful information to our dashboard.

Using the dashboard interface, it was easy to check the status of running processes and quickly find key information, such as which volumes have the highest usage levels. To get this information, agents must be installed on file and application servers. EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9 includes a new utility that ably pushes agents out to servers.

Automation capabilities in EMC VisualSAN allow IT managers to set scripts to run when certain events occur. For example, if a file system gets close to being filled, administrators can configure EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9 to move the data to an alternative location.

EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9s move-and-compress option is another useful tool that can be used for automatically moving infrequently used Windows, Unix and Linux files and log files. (Compression is not supported on NetWare. Still, the fact that VisualSRM has a NetWare agent at all is a plus.)

We like the fact that we could make some policies interactive, meaning that a policy wouldnt automatically run unless an administrator specifically approved it.

EMC VisualSRM 1.5.9s reporting options were relatively easy to use and capably generated basic reports, including media files found, storage consumption by owner and duplicate files.

Senior Analyst Henry Baltazar can be reached at henry_ [email protected].