EMC Unveils New ProSphere Cloud Storage Management

All-new Enterprise Storage Resource Management Offering Resets the Bar for Highly Virtualized Environments

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News Summary:

• EMC announces all-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.
• 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.
• EMC ControlCenter users under maintenance contract can upgrade to ProSphere free of charge, ensuring a seamless path to its advanced capabilities for virtual and cloud storage infrastructures.
• Key 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.

Full Story:

HOPKINTON, Mass., July 14, 2011 –EMC® Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced its all-new EMC ProSphere™ Storage Resource Management (SRM) offering. ProSphere was designed from the ground up specifically to address the rapidly evolving needs of enterprises as they migrate to highly virtualized, cloud-based computing models.  With its federated architecture, ProSphere delivers a complete end-to-end view of all storage assets regardless of location, allowing single-pane management and host-through-storage performance monitoring and analysis.  Key new attributes such as agent-less discovery, “Smart Groups” policy management and tight integration with the latest EMC and VMware® storage and virtualization technologies give ProSphere users powerful and innovative 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 rapidly 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 seamless 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 immediate support for the newly announced 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 world’s 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 fully 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.”
-- Hayden Stone, Manager of Cloud Infrastructure, Internet Solutions

New York-based BGC Partners, Inc. is a leading 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.”
-- 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.”
-- 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.”
-- Jay Mastaj, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EMC Infrastructure Management Group

--Agent-less Discovery eliminates the burden of installing and managing host agents.

--New “Smart Groups” Technology streamlines policy management by letting users group and manage objects with similar characteristics.  Smart Groups dramatically 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.

--New Highly Intuitive Browser-based User Interface provides a complete end-to-end view with just a 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.

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

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