EMC ProSphere SRM for Cloud Computing

News Summary:

• EMC announces new storage management solution for the cloud computing era.
• EMC ProSphere was designed to provide customers with the ability to manage increasingly larger, more disparate environments while integrating virtualization and hybrid cloud computing models.  
• Integration and support for the latest EMC and VMware technologies will enable ProSphere users to maximize the value of the investments they’re making in virtualization and cloud technologies.
• EMC ControlCenter users under maintenance contract can upgrade to ProSphere free of charge, ensuring a path to its capabilities for virtual and cloud storage infrastructures.
• New attributes include agent-less discovery, a federated architecture, end-to-end views with just two clicks, rapid deployment on less hardware and ‘Smart Groups’ policy management.

EMC Corporation announced its ProSphere Storage Resource Management (SRM) offering.

ProSphere was designed from the ground up to address the evolving needs of enterprises as they migrate to highly virtualized, cloud-based computing models. With its federated architecture, ProSphere delivers a view of all storage assets regardless of location, allowing single-pane management and host-through-storage performance monitoring and analysis.  

Key attributes such as agent-less discovery, ‘Smart Groups’ policy management and integration with the latest EMC and VMware storage and virtualization technologies give ProSphere users powerful tools for streamlining the management of next generation storage infrastructures.

As enterprises increasingly move to highly virtualized environments and cloud computing, the additional layers of abstraction created by virtual provisioning, automated storage tiering, and other virtual storage technologies dramatically changes the requirements for efficient and effective storage management. For storage managers to keep pace with changing infrastructure configurations and properly manage service levels, new productivity tools and management capabilities are essential. EMC ControlCenter users under maintenance contract can upgrade to ProSphere free of charge, ensuring a path to its advanced capabilities for virtual and cloud storage infrastructures. In addition to support for EMC Symmetrix, VMAX, DMX, VNX and CLARiiON series of arrays, ProSphere offers support for the newl VMAXe system.

EMC ProSphere was designed to provide customers with the ability to manage increasingly larger, more disparate environments while integrating virtualization and hybrid cloud computing models. ProSphere’s federated architecture was built to address the size and scale of the largest data centers. It installs and discovers most enterprise environments in under eight hours. Its near real-time monitoring and analysis provides up to date and detailed views of service levels. ProSphere allows enterprises to realize the operational and capital cost savings associated with virtualization and cloud storage by maximizing productivity, resource utilization, performance and service levels.

"ProSphere is the tool we’ve been waiting for. It’s simple to deploy and there are no host-based agents to manage.  It provides a strong starting point for the ‘single pane of glass’ needed to provide an end-to-end view of both our virtual and physical environments, providing us the information we need at our fingertips," said Hayden Stone, Manager of Cloud Infrastructure, Internet Solutionshttp://www.is.co.za.

New York-based BGC Partners, Inc. is a global intermediary to the wholesale financial markets and was a participant in the EMC ProSphere beta program. "Our deployment of ProSphere on the ESX server was fast and simple. In under an hour we were discovering our environment. From there, we saw distinct productivity gains on several fronts. The ease and speed with which we were able to attain an end-to-end view of our environment is a great time saver for us. In addition, with agent-less discovery we no longer have to go back to our SAN or server teams for loading of agents. We also used the new ‘Smart Groups’ feature to classify and group our hosts by type, which will make managing them a much more efficient process. We are a long time EMC ControlCenter user. In ProSphere, EMC has developed a new storage management solution that’s in close lockstep with the evolution of our virtual infrastructure," said Joe Koehler, Vice President of Global SAN Infrastructure, BGC Partners, Inc.

"Virtualization and the various iterations of cloud deployments present new management challenges to adopters. While clearly designed for enterprise storage professionals, ProSphere offers up a simple solution for managing these increasingly complex and rapidly changing environments.  EMC has taken a large step forward in the SRM space at a time when enterprises need a new generation of management tools to realize the benefits of cloud storage," said Bob Laliberte, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.

"With the introduction of ProSphere, EMC is charting an aggressive course that maps customers’ storage resource management capabilities to next generation computing platforms. Full integration and support for the latest EMC and VMware technologies will enable ProSphere users to maximize the value of the investments they’re making in virtualization and cloud technologies," said Jay Mastaj, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EMC Infrastructure Management Group

Product Highlights

• Agent-less Discovery eliminates the burden of installing and managing host agents.
• ‘Smart Groups’ Technology streamlines policy management by letting users group and manage objects with similar characteristics. Smart Groups improves operational efficiency in fast growing, highly virtualized environments.
• Federated Architecture supports end-to-end, multi-site management from a single pane of glass regardless of location.
• Browser-based User Interface provides an end-to-end view with few clicks, making it easy for users to understand and address complex relationships in large virtualized environments.
• Near real-time monitoring and analysis provides up to date and detailed views of service levels.
• Rapid Deployment /Updates: Deployed as a virtual appliance, ProSphere takes less than an hour to install and discovers most enterprise environments in under eight hours. Application updates are simple and performed via browser-based interface.
• Reduced Hardware Requirements: ProSphere reduces the number of physical servers to run the application by up to 75% compared to its predecessor.

Availability
EMC ProSphere will be available at the end of July, 2011. For customers with an EMC ControlCenter maintenance contract, ProSphere is available at no additional charge.