EMC has announced ViPR 2.0 at EMC World 2014, which is a Software-Defined Storage platform that dramatically simplifies the management of both existing and new storage infrastructure, while providing new data services to underpin next-generation applications and Big Data analytics. ViPR 2.0 removes the gap to the 3rd Platform by allowing customers to manage both existing and new storage infrastructures in a consistent, fully automated way. Additionally, ViPR plugs into higher-level management and orchestration tools from VMware, OpenStack, and Microsoft so that storage can be a part of broader data center workflows.
EMC has announced ViPR 2.0 at EMC World 2014, which is a Software-Defined Storage platform that dramatically simplifies the management of both existing and new storage infrastructure, while providing new data services to underpin next-generation applications and Big Data analytics. ViPR 2.0 removes the gap to the 3rd Platform by allowing customers to manage both existing and new storage infrastructures in a consistent, fully automated way. Additionally, ViPR plugs into higher-level management and orchestration tools from VMware, OpenStack, and Microsoft so that storage can be a part of broader data center workflows.
The biggest advantage of EMC’s ViPR Software Defined Storage Platform is that it separates the Control Plane (the ability to centrally manage various storage array functions including discovery, provisioning and reporting through ViPR Controller) from the Data Plane (advanced data services that run on top of storage arrays through ViPR Data Services delivering). As a result, ViPR simplifies management of intelligent arrays all the while taking advantage of their underlying intelligence in a fully automated way that is based on policy.
In addition to its management capabilities, ViPR Data Services have also been improved significantly. Support for commodity drives is added to the existing object and HDFS storage implementation along with block data services, which is based on EMC ScaleIO.
ViPR 2.0 has also added multi-site support using powerful new geo-scale storage capabilities, providing data access, integrity, and protection. As a result, ViPR Object Data Services can now span multiple locations and offer state-of-the-art, patent pending geo-replication and geo-distribution capabilities to deliver new levels of efficiency and performance. Additionally, ViPR Object Data Services add additional compliance capabilities to ensure federal, healthcare, and other industry requirements are met as well as provides support for the EMC Centera CAS (Content Addressable Storage) API. This gives EMC Centera customers the ability to maintain the unique retention and compliance features provided by their applications on any ViPR-supported platform–all with no software changes required. ViPR Data Services essentially provides access to data wherever users are, wherever the data is, and whenever it’s needed.
ViPR 2.0 also adds ViPR Block Services, which are new data services based on EMC ScaleIO server-SAN software. ViPR Block Services deliver block storage capabilities to any ViPR managed commodity storage array.
Through a new OpenStack Cinder plugin, ViPR Controller now natively support commodity as well as more storage arrays. The full list of natively supported arrays now includes EMC, Hitachi Data Systems and NetApp in addition to commodity storage. With the OpenStack Cinder plugin, ViPR also supports Dell, HP and IBM arrays. Through expanded support, ViPR now supports the vast majority of the storage arrays in the market today. In addition, ViPR 2.0 delivers simple “pane-of-glass” management for customers to automate and standardize the management of an existing storage infrastructure, all the while bridging support for the new storage infrastructure that is policy-driven.
ViPR 2.0 extends support for EMC arrays with improved integration and management of EMC VPLEX and EMC RecoverPoint. This includes the addition of multi-site capabilities and augmented multi-tenancy to support geo-scale storage environments that scale to hundreds of tenants in multiple locations all through a single namespace.
Software-Defined Storage Suites Upgrades
EMC’s Software-Defined Storage software suites, ViPR SRM and Service Assurance (SA) Suite, have also undergone significant improvements. These new updates are specifically designed to give customers maximum visibility into complex multi-vendor environments. In addition to support for a broad range of EMC and third-party platforms, ViPR SRM delivers enhanced integration with both ViPR and VPLEX. This provides new chargeback capabilities to allow organizations to offer IT-as-a-Service beyond SLAs. Enhancements to ViPR SRM also include enhanced virtual storage management using the ViPR console. SAS 9.3 offers integration with VMware NSX, which provides deep visibility into compute and network infrastructure in both physical and virtual environments.
Availability
EMC ViPR 2.0 will be available sometime in the second quarter of 2014. ViPR SRM and SAS 9.3 will also be available in Q2.
