EMC Corporation today announced new EMC VPlex Geo technology enabling the resources of disparate storage systems in geographically dispersed data centres to be federated together and utilised as a single pool of virtual storage. When combined with virtual servers it is a key enabler of private and hybrid cloud computing and fundamentally changes the way data centres are designed and information technology is delivered.
“VPlex Geo is key technology that will further accelerate both private and hybrid cloud adoption. It is changing the way organisations think about IT, from data centre design to business continuity. Fundamental to this is active/active data over distance. It is the inherent benefit of VPlex Geo – the ability to fully utilise two separate, geographically separated data centres, including from service providers, as a single shared resource that can be dynamically shifted as needed,” said Brian Gallagher, president of the EMC enterprise storage division. He was addressing the media on the second day of EMC World 2011 at Las Vegas.
The first generation of VPlex technology was introduced last year – with the ability to aggregate resources within a single data centre or between data centres less than 100km apart. VPlex Geo enables data mobility, availability and collaboration through active/active data over distance – the ability to non-disruptively move thousands of virtual machines and petabytes of information thousands of miles, allowing customers to dynamically balance workloads and easily shift IT operations out of the way of regional disasters.
According to EMC, the latest version of the VPlex operating system improves storage efficiency by enabling VPlex to non-disruptively move or copy virtually provisioned or thinly provisioned devices across EMC and non-EMC arrays, allowing storage to be allocated and consumed only as it is needed. There is also added support for some of the most common midrange storage systems, including those from NetApp and HP, which enables more data centre resources to be federated.
“Organisations worldwide ranging from enterprises to public cloud providers have been searching for ways to pool their dispersed storage assets to create a global storage platform for their rapidly growing repertoire of cloud applications. EMC’s VPlex Geo will bring customers one step closer to the realisation of boundary-less storage for cloud computing,” said Raghu Raghuram, senior vice president and general manager, virtualisation and cloud platforms at VMware.
Gallagher also said that VPlex Global is in the coding level and that it is expected to be available ‘later’.
Sathya Mithra Ashok is reporting live from EMC World 2011 in Las Vegas.
