EMC Atmos Cloud Storage Enhancements Accelerate Cloud Transformation

EMC Corporation announced new products and enhancements across its entire Atmos portfolio, extending value for enterprises and service providers as they transform to cloud.

General availability of the Atmos 2.1 Software, first announced in May 2012 at EMC World, has been supplemented with additional new features, enhancements and packaging options.

New Atmos G3-Dense-480 hardware, incorporating a new x86 Intel-based architecture, delivers additional performance and density. In addition, a new release of Atmos GeoDrive Windows 1.1 delivers enhanced security, availability and features-making it easier to manage and provide access to any Atmos storage cloud.

As cloud adoption accelerates, enterprises and service providers consistently face new challenges as they scale and manage their cloud storage operations in large, globally distributed environments. The explosion of unstructured data generated by web applications, tablets and mobile devices requires both massive on-demand scalability and support for multiple device types and applications. Providing secure instant access to petabytes of data from any device or application – anywhere in the world – requires an agile platform that addresses the convergence of data, applications and access. The latest additions to the Atmos portfolio help enterprises and service providers to transform their business while driving operational efficiencies at scale.

New Atmos Portfolio Highlights:

Atmos G3-Dense-480 Hardware
The Atmos G3 series introduces new processing power, performance and density enhancements to the Atmos product line. The G3-Dense-480 is the first in the Atmos G3 series and offers Intel x86-based architecture, 10GbE network connectivity, 60 disks per node and flexible rack-based configurations that consist of 4, 6, or 8 nodes. The Atmos G3-Dense-480, with 480 disks in 40U, comes standard racked, cabled, and pre-configured for easy serviceability and fit within datacenters. With 480 disks and 3TB drives, the Atmos G3-Dense-480 provides a dense and energy efficient Atmos storage platform. This enables enterprises and service providers to more cost-effectively manage petabyte-scale environments with less infrastructure and power.

Atmos 2.1 Software
In addition to the REST API, Atmos 2.1 natively supports the Amazon S3 API. This provides customers with the ability to migrate their S3 applications to any of the more than 40 Atmos powered public clouds around the globe or any internal private cloud they are deploying. Customers benefit from more options to choose from, including improved SLAs, services, and price points that match their needs. This capability also opens new markets for services providers to build and deliver competitive services that attract customers with applications already written to the widely used API.

Atmos is available in 3 flexible feature
and price-based configurations:

• Atmos CE – Complete Edition provides full Atmos functionality designed for distributed locations, including multi-site active/active, multi-tenancy, and full policy controls. Deployed on Atmos hardware.
• Atmos LE – Light Edition offers a subset of Atmos functionality to meet cloud archive and centralized data centers, including 2 sites, 1 tenant / 1 subtenant, and limited policy controls. Deployed on Atmos hardware.
• Atmos VE – Virtual Edition provides the full functionality of Atmos CE deployed on any VMware-certified third-party storage, including EMC Celerra, CLARiiON, Symmetrix, VNX, VNXe, and Isilon.

Atmos GeoDrive Windows 1.1
GeoDrive is a value-added software package for licensed Atmos customers that provides instant Windows access to any Atmos powered storage cloud.

EMC is delivering enhancements for GeoDrive Windows 1.1, making it easier to manage and provide access to an Atmos storage cloud:

• New CIFS Cloud Gateway supports unlimited users and eliminates need for client software
• Shareable URLs for improved collaboration
• Drag and drop file capabilities to build your own ‘cloud’ drive
• Now available in 10 languages
• Microsoft clustering for HA and added data encryption for even greater cloud security

Simon Robinson, research VP, 451 Research, said: "With the general availability of Atmos 2.1 software, a new generation of Atmos hardware, new configuration options and multiple new enhancements to virtually all elements within the Atmos portfolio, EMC is evolving its Atmos Cloud Storage offering with compelling new capabilities that service providers and enterprises alike should respond very favorably to. For service providers who are evaluating ‘build versus buy’ cloud platform decisions, EMC Atmos tilts the scales with a powerful, yet flexible array of features and options that can be deployed rapidly and scale to support their customer acquisition velocity."

PJ Farmer, director of product management, Savvis, Inc., said: "Savvis selected EMC Atmos to power its Symphony Cloud Storage offering and provide the ability to deliver unlimited capacity with the reliability and protection our customers demand. We are pleased to see new performance and capacity enhancements across the platform and an ecosystem of strategic partner integrations to help us deliver differentiated services to market."

Amitabh Srivastava, president, EMC Advanced Storage Division, said: "EMC’s focus on delivering seamless, secure and reliable cloud access is underscored by the numerous advancements to the Atmos product portfolio we are announcing today. These new software and hardware platform capabilities meet the demands of the most progressive and sizeable cloud environments, and reflect EMC’s commitment to being the infrastructure provider of choice for cloud environments."

Atmos G3-Dense-480 Hardware, Atmos 2.1 Software and GeoDrive Windows 1.1 are available.