New EMC Celerra Software for VMware

EMC Corporation extended its offer in storage for VMware environments with new software that increases virtual storage efficiency, automation and management simplicity. The new EMC Celerra unified storage system software features address information management complexities in virtual environments and help to reduce costs and maximize existing storage investments using a single, simplified management interface.

The new EMC Celerra Plug-Ins for VMware Environments builds upon EMC’s broad portfolio of midrange storage systems and software designed specifically for VMware infrastructure environments with new capabilities that:  

• Reduce virtual machine storage capacity requirements by up to 50-percent through thin provisioning, deduplication and improved management.
• Accelerate the cloning of virtual machine data 2-to-3 times faster than existing solutions using the processing power of the Celerra systems.
• Automate the failback process for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager software in NFS environments – unique to the industry.

The new EMC Celerra Plug-In for VMware Environments enables VMware administrators to more effectively and easily provision, manage and extend these VMware data stores – all from the VMware vCenter console. The new EMC software also enables VMware administrators to perform snapshot or clone operations of individual virtual machines from the VMware vCenter Server console, which are hardware-accelerated within the Celerra unified storage system. In addition, Celerra Data Deduplication software enables compression of VMware Virtual Machine Disk files, which significantly reduces the storage capacity required for virtual machines in addition to more efficient use of capacity through thin provisioning.

Additionally, EMC is extending its failover and failback capabilities to NFS environments with EMC Failback Plug-In for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager software. The integration with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager helps ensure rapid, reliable, manageable and affordable business continuity in VMware environments. Extending automation of failover and failback capabilities to NFS deployments with EMC Failback Plug-In for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager mitigates risks and maximizes existing IT investments for affordable business continuity. All of these capabilities are available for download at no additional charge to EMC Celerra customers with current maintenance arrangements.

"The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany used the EMC Celerra Plug-In for VMware environments for its storage provisioning, compressing virtual machines and creating clones of our virtual machines," said Urle Betzler, Senior Storage Architect at Steinbuch Centre for Computing at the KIT. "The EMC plug-ins provide a fast and easy way to provision numerous virtual machines simultaneously. We find the ability to create numerous clones – including image customization – is possible with minimal time and effort. This plug-in truly closes the gap we were challenged with between storage administration and virtual infrastructure administration speaking the same language and being entirely transparent."

"Customers choose VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, improve agility, and ensure business continuity – paving the way for customers on the journey to cloud computing," said Hatem Naguib, Vice President, Alliances, VMware. "These new capabilities from EMC greatly increase the ease-of-use and resource optimization for mutual customers, integrating with VMware vSphere through common deployment interfaces. Now VMware administrators have enhanced control to reduce storage consumption, maintain service levels for performance-sensitive applications, and simplify storage management and data recovery tasks."

"EMC continues to invest and develop advanced features and functionality to simplify the management of both physical and virtual infrastructures," said Mark Sorenson, Senior Vice President, EMC Unified Storage Division. "As virtual environments – and the inherent management complexities for managing these environments – grow, EMC continues to bring to market storage solutions and features such as compressing virtual machines, cloning virtual machines, and automating failback/failover to solve our customers’ challenges. These innovations contribute to EMC Celerra’s position as a market leader, with its 11th consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 2009. Today EMC extends its position as the leading storage infrastructure provider with software for the industry’s fastest growing unified storage solution tailored for VMware environments."

Availability and EMC Global Services
The EMC Celerra Plug-Ins for VMware Environments are available for download to EMC Celerra customers with current maintenance arrangements. Both plug-ins are available from EMC, Dell and its authorized partners.