EMC NAS arrays optimised for VMware

Vendor broadens virtualisation offering

EMC has announced an upgrade to the management software on its Celerra network-attached storage (NAS) arrays that will allow administrators to apply deduplication, thin provisioning and business continuity tools to data stored in VMware environments.

EMC's new Celerra Plug-Ins for VMware Environments adds several new capabilities, including an automated failback process for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager software. When one offsite Celerra array fails, it automatically fails over to another Celerra array -- either at the same site or in the primary datacentre.

EMC had previously been offering the upgrades for Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage area networks (SANs), but it is now also offering those capabilities for NFS [Network File System protocol] environments.

Brad Bunce, director of unified storage marketing for EMC, said the free upgrades also allow storage deduplication for individual virtual machines, reducing the amount of storage required on Celerra arrays supporing them by as much as 50%.

The new plug-ins also allow for thin provisioning -- the ability to add storage capacity as an application requires it -- as well as data cloning, or data snap shots of virtual data stores on Celerra, Bunce says.

The plug-ins also automate the failback process for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager software in NFS environments, which is unique to the industry.