Continuing the trend of making management software for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), storage systems provider EMCtoday unveiled new software tailored to help customers in the mid-tier storage market automate their storage networks. For the Hopkinton, Mass.-based firm, addressing the SMB market is a sign that the company is looking to expand its scope beyond the high-end storage arena to smaller envrions.
EMC VisualSRM and EMC VisualSAN Easy improve capacity utilization in addition to making management hands-free by automating tasks, a function that many software makers have been writing into their code to free systems administrators from the chores of manual operation.
EMC Executive Vice President of Open Software Operations and Chief Technology Officer Mark Lewis asserts that while SMBs have storage requirements similar to those of large businesses, they often lack the knowledge to implement them. Accordingly, EMC has made ease-of-use the core of the VisualSRM and VisualSAN applications.
Specifically, VisualSRM improves on the way storage capacity is used by offering file-level reporting and centralized storage resource management across a business’s storage and server platforms. It supports Microsoft Exchange, Oracle, Sybase, and SQL Server databases, and integrates with other storage management applications from such rival
vendors as IBM, VERITAS, HP, CA, and BMC.
VisualSRM also aids in managing the lifecyle of information via automated policies for moving, deleting, compressing, and archiving files based on how old the data is and how much time has elapsed since the file was last accessed. The software solution keeps administrators informed via weekly reports that offer a snapshot of what the company’s storage world looks like volume-by-volume.
Meanwhile, in keeping with users’ requests for “dashboard” views of infrastructure status, VisualSAN provides administrators with a single view of all devices across their storage networks. VisualSAN is composed of three components — the VisualSAN Network Manager for monitoring independent SAN devices; the VisualSAN Configuration Manager for helping administrators capture the state of a SAN configuration at one point in time; and the VisualSAN Performance Manager, which provides live and historical analysis of link statistics across a SAN.
VisualSAN supports EMC’s CLARiiON systems and will also support other mid-tier storage platforms when the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) is completed and ratified.
Enterprise Storage Group Senior Analyst Nancy Marrone-Hurley believes that with its new storage software solutions, EMC now has a cost-effective advantage over competitors because it offers similar products, but at a lower price point. Pricing for VisualSRM starts at $2,000, while pricing for VisualSAN starts at $6,000.
EMC counts industrial lighting fixture manufacturer Acuity Brands as one of its first VisualSAN customers. Acuity employs the application to take a snapshot of its SAN to identify and analyze any changes that have been made, and to compare them to a proven configuration.
Story courtesy of Internet News.
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