EMC Updates Atmos

EMC Corporation unveiled improved information management and higher performing, lower cost platform capabilities as part of its EMC Atmos cloud infrastructure solution.

EMC Atmos is an internal, on-premises cloud storage platform designed to help customers automatically manage and optimize the distribution of rich, unstructured information across geographically dispersed locations. With the introduction of GeoProtect functionality in the latest version of Atmos, EMC continues to advance the flexibility, resiliency and content protection levels that enterprises desire when architecting a large-scale, globally distributed cloud infrastructure solution.

In addition, EMC has strengthened its Atmos cloud infrastructure platform by upgrading to the new Intel Xeon processor 5500 series as well as adding higher density, 2 terabyte (TB) disk drives for greater levels of efficiency, performance and scale in petabyte-size cloud environments.

National Specialty Benefit Management Company
Implements Atmos for Management
of Half Petabyte of Geographically Dispersed Data
William Moore, CTO of CareCore National, said: "By integrating evidence-based clinical criteria with a single pathway delivery system covering 45 million lives, we have quickly developed healthcare data informatics of unprecedented depth and scale. This rapid growth required us to quickly evolve our data platform and leverage cloud-based storage to better retain, manage, and utilize 15 years of unstructured data. EMC Atmos has been critical for us in cost effectively addressing the scalability and security issues in storing over a half petabyte of geographically dispersed data, while continuing to push millions of data files daily onto our system. Advances like GeoProtect in Atmos give us greater flexibility in driving stronger data protection policies in our cloud environment. EMC Atmos continues to be the cornerstone of the CareCore National cloud platform as we grow our healthcare client base and expand our evidence-based management programs."

EMC Introduces New Levels of Data Protection
for Atmos Environments

• In order to lower the cost and improve data protection across cloud infrastructure environments, EMC has designed a new, ground-breaking technique for customers to protect vast amounts of data at a significantly lower cost. EMC’s new Atmos GeoProtect offers customers the control and flexibility to apply the appropriate performance and protection levels to their content, based on the current content life cycle, value of the content and data availability requirements. 
• Rather than replicating an entire object (i.e., recent Late Night television video clip), GeoProtect, through an advanced protection technique called erasure coding, divides the object into multiple segments and through predetermined policies set by the customer, automatically distributes the content across a customer’s infrastructure, allowing Atmos to seamlessly recreate the content in the event of system downtime or a disaster. This new functionality provides customers with protection levels that provide greater resiliency than replication with less storage overhead – a significant savings in cost, management and efficiency when managing information at ‘petabyte scale.’
• At the same time, customers can also use GeoProtect to replicate content and distribute it to the right location at the right time. Once that content is no longer valuable to the customer or diminishes in value, the policy engine within EMC Atmos can be set to automatically reduce the number of copies and archive that content to a designated location.

EMC Advances Performance and Scale of Atmos Platform
EMC has strengthened the Atmos hardware platform by leveraging the latest Intel Xeon processor 5500 series (more than 50% performance improvement) and 2 terabyte (TB) disk drives, doubling the capacity (720 TB in a cabinet) for cloud infrastructures. For example, a customer with 1.5 Petabytes of Atmos storage can store and manage [approximately 10 billion photos] with half the footprint of previous systems. These next-generation architecture advancements optimize processing utilization, increase footprint densities, give flexibility to control power consumption and expand data service performance with more compute capabilities.

Seth Bobroff, General Manager, Data Center Group, Storage, Intel Corporation, said: "Intel is committed to delivering new and improved technologies and capabilities to optimize cloud environments. The performance of the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series and the scalability of EMC Atmos provide key building blocks to develop the most efficient cloud computing infrastructures."

Michael Feinberg, Senior Vice President of EMC’s Cloud Infrastructure Group, said: "Since our initial launch, EMC Atmos has experienced strong traction from service providers, vertical industries and the government. Our new GeoProtect functionality provides customers with the elasticity and control they require to apply intelligent, flexible protection policies, while managing their content along its lifecycle. In addition, the hardware platform enhancements deliver significant efficiency and twice the scale. By executing on our roadmap, we are able to provide customers with the necessary protection, controls and flexibility required for managing their content in this revolutionary IT environment."

Benjamin Woo, Vice President, Worldwide Storage Systems of IDC, said: "Customers leveraging globally dispersed cloud infrastructures need significant levels of scale and efficiency in order to meet their growing unstructured content requirements. The new EMC Atmos software and hardware enhancements give customers the flexibility and scale they need to protect their information cost effectively. Atmos extends EMC’s information infrastructure and gives customers flexible choices in how they manage their unstructured data."

Availability and Services

• EMC Atmos, version 1.3, and associated hardware updates will be shipping in the first quarter.
• Additionally, EMC Global Services offers the Cloud-based Business Advisory Service. Delivered through EMC Consulting, this service helps customers identify potential use cases and compelling new offers that could leverage cloud computing to create new revenue streams, counter competitive threats and expand and retain customers.