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Companies like EMC that have huge annual user/partner conferences are challenged each year to upstage what they did the year before.
Well, what EMC revealed May 21 onstage at the Venetian in Las Vegas will be particularly difficult to top next year. This is because the world’s largest data storage, security and virtualization hardware and software company introduced a whopping 42 new products or services to a record 13,000 attendees registered at EMC World 2012.
Normally, a company like this will launch just a few new items at an event like this and leave it at that. The difference here is that EMC isn’t unveiling any large landmark-type products–more like a few dozen small and midsize ones.
Common Bond: The Hybrid Cloud
If all of these 42 products and/or services have a common tie, it is that they are rooted in EMC’s push to move enterprises from conventional data center hardware and software to a hybrid cloud model. The refresh includes products across EMC’s entire storage, backup, virtualization and management catalog.
“This year’s EMC World isn’t just about the sheer volume of announcements; it’s about impact all over the portfolio,” Enterprise Strategy Group founder and Senior Analyst Steve Duplessie said. “The company, already booming, clearly isn’t sitting still anywhere. It’s impressive, to say the least.”
Most of the new performance improvements stem from the availability of Intel’s latest cool-running, power-saving, multicore Ivy Bridge x86-type processors. Here are the highlights from the company’s self-described MegaLaunch II:
- Updates for most of EMC’s VMAX line of high-end enterprise storage arrays–the ones that used to be called Symmetrix. Launched in April 2009, the VMAXes were augmented in early 2011 with the VNX and VNXe models and are getting a complete software upgrade here in mid-2012. EMC says that the new software streamlines overall operations and enables VMAX to use new hosts and applications, while offering the ability to more easily integrate legacy storage machines into an integrated and unified pool of resources. Connecting old arrays that still work well enough to speedier new ones has been problematic for many IT managers for a long time.
- EMC’s Isilon division, which does a lot of business in big batch-type media and scientific storage loads, announced a new OneFS scale-out NAS operating system that it has code-named Mavericks. EMC says that OneFS will offer better data protection, system performance and interoperability. It is expected to become available in the next few weeks.
- The unified VNX systems for midrange and smaller enterprise systems get a software upgrade. EMC claims that the new channel-only VNXe 3150 moves data 50 percent faster and holds 50 percent more capacity per rack unit, compared with its previous versions. EMC and its virtualization division, VMware, also extended their initiative to develop, sell and deliver storage analytics for VNX unified storage.
- Entry-level VNX and VNXe storage systems feature a starting price of about $10,000. The biggest advantage of these machines is that you don’t have to be a storage specialist to get them up and running. They can be configured in a few minutes using a wizard interface to provision email boxes and storage allotments, storage targets, access controls and other policies for up to hundreds of email users.
- Freshened-up Data Domain and Avamar de-duplication systems and their software are breaking out of their EMC-only shells and now connect better with other makes of enterprise applications, workloads and processes. EMC is getting more cross-system-friendly than it historically has been; it has to, because data centers are already an amalgamation of equipment that IT managers want to use as long as possible.
- EMC claims that VPLEX virtual storage, combined with its RecoverPoint data protection, represents the industry’s first cloud package to connect active-active data centers with third-site disaster recovery protection.
- There’s a new suite of enhancements to EMC’s Atmos Cloud platform for use in managing big data workloads in large, globally distributed cloud storage environments. The company also announced new Atmos Cloud Accelerators that speed up data movement in and out of Atmos-powered clouds.
- New EMC DataBridge enterprise management tool empowers IT operations teams with “single-pane-of-glass” management to build customizable dashboards for delivering ITaaS. DataBridge offers real-time IT infrastructure management controls.
eWEEK will take closer looks at some of the new products in the days to come. For more information on EMC World 2012, go here.