News

posted on 26 February 2008 18:00

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EMC has released a set of pre-tested storage configurations for four applications running in VMware virtual machines.

The applications are:Microsoft SQL Server; Exchange; Oracle; and SAP

Product components of EMC’s application template capabilities include:

- iSCSI, NFS and Fibre Channel storage configurations optimised for VMware virtualisation environments, including EMC Celerra NS20 multi-protocol storage systems.

- Advanced data de-duplication backup optimised for VMware virtualisation software using VMware VCB and EMC Avamar.

- Integration of VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and storage priority tools to deliver full end-to-end (CPU, memory and I/O) QoS for mission-critical virtual machines.

- Application-Integrated replication leveraging Exchange, SQL Server, Oracle, and other application interfaces – completely supported in VMware environments using EMC Replication Manager.

- Storage resource management that leverages VMware Virtual Center APIs to build complete end-to-end physical-to-virtual maps, topologies and performance views environments – without agents - using EMC ControlCenter software.

- Business Continuity and data protection enabled by RecoverPoint and VMware VMotion.

Additionally, EMC supports the forthcoming VMware Site Recovery Manager by enabling its integration with EMC’s portfolio of remote replication products including EMC SRDF, EMC MirrorView, EMC Celerra Replicator, and EMC RecoverPoint.

EMC has 'defined optimised application and storage solution configurations, assured interoperability and fully documented, complete deployment best practices' for these four applications to 'provide quick and simplified implementation in advanced VMware infrastructures.'

EMC says 'these application solutions' (or templates) 'have been tested and documented at broad workloads in VMware Infrastructure 3.5 environments to enable deployments that meet customer expectations for application-level performance, backup and recovery, remote replication, high availability and manageability.' The company says 'customers can more rapidly achieve the cost-reduction and flexibility of VMware environments in less time and with less effort.'

Once more we see the VMware storage effect with VMware becoming the gate through which virtually all storage must pass.

Chuck Hollis, VP and global marketing CTO for EMC, said: “The industry has recognised that VMware is changing the computing landscape. Now, the race is on to provide customers a fast path to VMware’s proven advantages. EMC has taken the next step by doing the solution validation work for our customers and partners to make sure they get predictable results in common application environments each and every time.”

In effect EMC has benchmarked its configurations against the four apps running as VMs. It would be quite interesting to have other suppliers do similar benchmarks and then have performance and cost information comparisons made available. It is possible that global warming could reverse before this happens.

Mark Bowker, an ESG analyst, thinks these EMC templates add assurance for customers as and when they adopt EMC storage products in VMware environments.