Re-Engineered EMC VMAX All Flash

Highlights:

• Expanding upon the XtremIO all-flash array, EMC launches VMAX All Flash, re-engineering VMAX to capitalize on the transformational value of flash in the modern data center
• VMAX All Flash is built to address mission-critical enterprise data center use cases, at storage costs less than traditional enterprise disk-based arrays
• EMC delivers the first-to-market all-flash storage array to natively support block, file, open systems and mainframe
• Features simplified appliance-like packaging and Xpect More program with guaranteed investment protection
• VMAX All Flash also delivered as a building block of the VCE, EMC Converged Platforms Division, Vblock and VxBlock 740 Systems

EMC Corporation made a quantum leap forward in its enterprise storage platform, announcing the VMAX All Flash, the first-to-market all-flash storage array to natively support block, file, open systems and mainframe with the ability to scale up to 4PB of data.

More than just improving on raw performance, VMAX All Flash arrays deliver the reliability and flexibility of the VMAX platform, while offering TCO less than traditional enterprise disk-based arrays. Recognized by customers as a trusted storage array, EMC is extending the VMAX data services to VMAX All Flash. In addition to a simplified management experience, its appliance-like packaging now includes both hardware and software.

Available, EMC’s VMAX array has been re-engineered to offer two new all-flash models: the VMAX 450 and VMAX 850. Both models are designed to take advantage of the superior performance, density and economies of scale offered by cutting-edge flash storage media. In addition, EMC will add improvements later in the year to compress data in real time, which will result in capacity efficiencies.

VMAX 850

More Than Just Performance Improvements
VMAX All Flash is engineered specifically to capitalize on the performance of flash and the economics of today’s latest large-capacity SSDs, introducing technology such as Write Folding that improves flash durability while simultaneously delivering peak performance. Multi-dimensional scalability is achieved through its V-Brick ‘building block’ architecture. Each V-Brick contains one VMAX engine and starts with 53TB of usable capacity that can be scaled up to 500TB in 13TB increments. Multiple V-Bricks can be combined to scale out to a maximum of eight VMAX engines and 4PB. The VMAX 450 can be configured to include one to four V-Bricks and the VMAX 850 up to eight V-Bricks, allowing customers to scale-out performance and ports.

Building on positive customer feedback for the simplified pricing and packaging of its XtremIO all-flash arrays, EMC is extending its Xpect More Program to offer customers simplified planning, deployment and management for the new VMAX All Flash array. The Xpect More Program offers a combination of a lifetime flat-price maintenance model and lifetime flash endurance protection. This not only removes many typical barriers to adoption of new technologies, it gives customers the ability to plan future procurement in a more predictable and efficient manner.

Both the VMAX 450 and 850 leverage the data services of the VMAX family and come in two appliance-like package offerings.

The base-level F package includes:

• Thin Provisioning
• QoS
• Embedded Unisphere
• VVols support and SnapVX technology
• AppSync data protection software to address Copy Data Management (CDM) needs

For customers who require a broader range of native data services,
the FX package also includes:

• The complete suite of EMC SRDF software for remote replication
• Controller-based Data at Rest Encryption (D@RE)
• EMC ViPR Suite (both controller and SRM) for software-defined automated provisioning, management, and monitoring
• EMC CloudArray software to link non-critical data between VMAX and cloud storage services
• EMC eNAS technology for file storage
• The newly launched EMC Unisphere 360 for simple, consolidated storage management of up to 200 VMAX arrays in a single data center

EMC ProtectPoint data protection software can be added to any configuration of VMAX All Flash to perform direct backup between VMAX and EMC Data Domain protection storage, without the need for traditional backup infrastructure. This avoids the typical data protection bottlenecks that can prevent flash storage platforms from reaching their potential.

Flash For Mission-Critical Environments
VMAX All Flash delivers millions of IO/s and sustains under 500μs of latency for R/W workloads while supporting up to 150GB/s of bandwidth. With a native set of data services, it is designed to support the mission-critical systems and applications with BC and DR capabilities that deliver six-nines availability through EMC SRDF remote replication technology. Customers can simplify their BC plans by consolidating workloads onto a single VMAX All Flash to protect vital information and run native data services.

VMAX All Flash supports an ecosystem of applications and systems including: Oracle, VMware, Microsoft and OpenStack as well as support for IBM Mainframe and iSeries. As customers move towards a software-defined data center and look for simple integration into management and orchestration platforms, VMAX All Flash provides Restful-APIs to facilitate data center integration.

Orderable now, EMC’s Converged Platforms Division (VCE), will also deliver the VMAX all-flash platform in the VCE Vblock and VxBlock 740 Systems, providing customers with the fastest, lowest risk path to a modern data center. In addition, the VMAX All Flash is orderable as a VCE Technology Extension to existing Vblock and VxBlock Systems and VCE Vscale Fabric implementations, providing customers with a path to extend the performance and capabilities of their current VCE-enabled data centers.

Ari Bose, CIO, Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., said: “As Brocade expands into new markets, our requirement for consistent low-latency, high-performance storage is growing rapidly. But we can’t afford to compromise performance, reduced resiliency or lack of native data services. We have a long and trusted relationship with EMC and its VMAX platform, so VMAX All Flash will allow us to meet our evolving needs. The simple planning and deployment for scale-out and scale-up flash storage, supported by the enterprise data services that we rely on from EMC, make VMAX All Flash the optimum solution for our needs.”

Mark Peters, practice director and senior analyst, ESG, said: “The storage industry is changing, both extensively and rapidly. When flash is faster, cheaper and offers a better cost-capacity-performance ratio than disk, it becomes the obvious choice for workloads that aren’t purely capacity oriented. But this still only makes sense when flash can deliver the same reliability promises that organizations have come to expect for their enterprise storage. Reliability, simplicity and integration will be the hallmarks of a new breed of flash storage for ‘regular enterprise’ use; a category which we expect to come into its own in 2016.”

Guy Churchward, president, core technologies, EMC, said: “2016 is the year of all-flash for primary storage and EMC is marking this milestone with the VMAX All Flash – a completely re-engineered platform that leverages extremely dense flash drives, paired with the power and simplicity of the VMAX data services platform. VMAX All Flash is designed for the modern data center – delivering monster IO/s and consistent sub-millisecond latency while offering world-class six-nines availability. The new VMAX All Flash has made a quantum leap forward in capability, performance and cost efficiency. And it only marks the beginning of EMC’s all-flash future.”