EMC adds virtual machine management to Clariion arrays

EMC Corp introduced new virtualization-aware capabilities for its Clariion CX4 midrange networked storage systems, which make CX4 software and disaster recovery applications aware of connected virtual machines.

EMC Monday also announced the availability of native 10Gbit/sec Ethernet connectivity for the Clariion CX4 arrays, which will boost the bandwidth used to support virtual server environments and iSCSI, or Internet SCSI, storage architectures.

Ruya Atac-Barrett, director of Clariion product marketing at EMC, called the upgrade to 10Gbit/sec Ethernet seamless for current Clariion CX4 owners. Those users can simply swap out the 1Gbit/sec cards now in the CX4 for the new 10Gbit/sec ones.

The array will automatically discover the new card, much like PCs discover USB-enabled devices. “This is a plug and play feature,” Atac-Barrett said.

Atac-Barrett said that storage administrators managing Clariion arrays today cannot see how connected virtual servers affect performance. In fact, in a recent survey. 70% of VMware users said it was “really hard” to manage virtual machines through storage interfaces, she said, adding that “20% said it was so hard they wanted to poke their own eyes out.”

EMC said it has integrated VMware's vCenter application programming interfaces with its Navisphere Manager software, which allows administrators to see virtual machines attached to their storage resources.

By integrating the Navisphere Manager with VMware's vCenter API, storage administrators can now identify the root cause of virtual machine performance problems as well as optimize capacity utilization by using two screens instead of 200.

For example, Atac-Barrett said that the software automatically discovers and maintains the relationships between the logical machines and physical machines.

The company also announced that it has integrated its RecoverPoint data recovery application and Replication Manager software, which provides instant image-level recovery of virtual machines.

The integration allows storage manager to replication VM instances to remote disaster recovery and business continuity facilities as well as provide a point-and-click recovery of VMs to improve recovery time objectives, EMC said.