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    <title>Virtual Winfrastructure</title>
    
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    <updated>2013-05-21T20:30:34-07:00</updated>
    <subtitle>Ramblings on Microsoft virtualization (Hyper-V) and storage</subtitle>
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        <title>EMC VSPEX Solutions for Microsoft </title>
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        <published>2013-05-21T20:30:34-07:00</published>
        <updated>2013-05-21T20:29:39-07:00</updated>
        <summary>What's blue, has six wheels and delivers highly available virtual Microsoft workloads? That would be the Avnet Mobile Data Center Solution for EMC VSPEX voted one of the Top 10 Hot Products from EMC World according to CRN! What makes the new mobile data center solution a top 10 product? It is pre-configured as a fully functional compute, network and storage solution allowing customers to have a virtual private cloud up and running in no time. It includes high-availability and disaster recovery so applications remain always available. It can be used as a long-term private cloud solution, as a temporary...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
        </author>
        
        
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<p>What's blue, has six wheels and delivers highly available virtual Microsoft workloads?
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c01901c6f83e6970b-pi" alt="" />
	</p>
<p>That would be the Avnet Mobile Data Center Solution for EMC VSPEX voted one of the <a title="CRN Top 10 Hot Products from EMC World" href="http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/storage/240154794/10-hot-products-from-emc-world-to-hit-the-storage-scene.htm?pgno=3" target="_blank">Top 10 Hot Products from EMC World according to CRN</a>!
</p>
<p>What makes the new mobile data center solution a top 10 product?  It is pre-configured as a fully functional compute, network and storage solution allowing customers to have a virtual private cloud up and running in no time.  It includes high-availability and disaster recovery so applications remain always available.  It can be used as a long-term private cloud solution, as a temporary data center in the event of a disaster or to assist in a data center move.  
</p>
<p>At the heart of this device is <a title="VSPEX" href="http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/storage/240154794/10-hot-products-from-emc-world-to-hit-the-storage-scene.htm?pgno=3" target="_blank">VSPEX</a>, EMC's program that combines the best of breed in virtualization software, server compute, networking stack and EMC storage arrays and backup devices.  EMC VSPEX includes solutions for Microsoft workloads including Microsoft SharePoint, Exchange and SQL Server.  EMC VSPEX is also key to programs such as the EMC Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track program.
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c019102656bc6970c-pi" alt="" />
	</p>
<p>The EMC VSPEX solution allows customers avoid the risks and complexity of building their own cloud infrastructures by providing simple, efficient, and flexible virtualization solutions that scale to meet their needs. VSPEX solutions are designed to provide the utmost in flexibility and because the solutions are tested and validated by EMC, they are proven to work so customers can deploy with them in confidence. Customers can even leverage existing hardware, software, licenses, and skill sets to build a VSPEX that is tailored to their specific needs and environment. 
</p>
<p>Included in the VSPEX program are technical documents such as solution overview, best practices, detailed technical validation, storage and virtualization design and layout information as well as sizing tools and solution whiteboard videos.  In other words, all of the necessary components for EMC's partners to easily build and deploy an end to end fully functional virtual datacenter such as the one by Avent.
</p>
<p>To learn more about the VSPEX program including the many Microsoft solutions, visit the <a title="EMC VSPEX Program" href="https://community.emc.com/community/partner/vspex" target="_blank">VSPEX page on the EMC Community Network</a>.  There are several videos available on the program including one highlighting the <a title="Avnet Mobile Datacenter video" href="https://community.emc.com/videos/5462" target="_blank">Avnet Mobile Data Center solution in action</a> and another providing an excellent <a title="EMC VSPEX Microsoft SharePoint whiteboard" href="http://www.emc.com/collateral/demos/microsites/mediaplayer-video/emc-vspex-for-virtualized-microsoft-sharepoint.htm" target="_blank">whiteboard overview of the EMC VSPEX Microsoft SharePoint solution</a>. 
</p>
<p>And if you're coming to Microsoft TechEd in just under two weeks, be sure to stop by the EMC booth to see and learn more about these solutions at the show!  Stay tuned for <a title="EMC at Microsoft TechEd" href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-24676" target="_blank">more updates on Microsoft TechEd</a> in the next few days!
</p>
</span></div>
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    </entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Leveraging Flash Across the Microsoft SQL Server Stack</title>
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        <published>2013-05-03T17:20:57-07:00</published>
        <updated>2013-05-03T17:20:25-07:00</updated>
        <summary>Earlier this week, EMC's Sam Marraccini wrote a guest blog on Microsoft's SQL Server team site highlighting the benefits of Flash technology with Microsoft SQL Server. In short, flash continues to be a game changer and with the introduction of EMC Xtrem products including XtremSF (PCIe server flash), XtremSW Cache (server side caching) and XtremIO (all Flash array) is helping to improve performance for key application workloads. When using flash technology to either extend the cache of the storage array or using flash PCIe cards in the server itself (or even better, using both!) – you can dramatically increase the...</summary>
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            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
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&lt;p&gt;Earlier this week, EMC's &lt;a title="Inside EMC Flash" href="http://www.insideflash.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Sam Marraccini&lt;/a&gt; wrote a &lt;a title="Microsoft SQL Server Team Site" href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2013/05/01/leveraging-flash-across-the-microsoft-sql-server-stack.aspx" target="_blank"&gt;guest blog on Microsoft's SQL Server team site&lt;/a&gt; highlighting the benefits of Flash technology with Microsoft SQL Server.  In short, flash continues to be a game changer and with the introduction of EMC Xtrem products including XtremSF (PCIe server flash), XtremSW Cache (server side caching) and XtremIO (all Flash array) is helping to improve performance for key application workloads.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c019101c5a16c970c-pi" alt="" /&gt;
	&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When using flash technology to either extend the cache of the storage array or using flash PCIe cards in the server itself (or even better, using both!) – you can dramatically increase the amount of total IOPS while also improving response times to sub-millisecond!  Think about that, drive more I\O while significantly improving performance at the same time.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Interested to read more, be sure to check out &lt;a title="Flash Across the Microsoft SQL Server Stack" href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2013/05/01/leveraging-flash-across-the-microsoft-sql-server-stack.aspx" target="_blank"&gt;Sam's blog post&lt;/a&gt; and be sure to come to the Solutions Group booth (#1035) or the Xtrem Flash booth at &lt;a title="EMC World" href="http://www.emcworld.com" target="_blank"&gt;EMC World&lt;/a&gt; next week!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
</content>



    </entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Painting a Picture of Microsoft Solutions at EMC World</title>
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        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a012877104c2d970c017eea97af21970d</id>
        <published>2013-04-26T08:31:36-07:00</published>
        <updated>2013-04-26T08:31:14-07:00</updated>
        <summary>EMC World is just around the corner (May 6-9) and we are busy behind the scenes preparing for a big week! As part of EMC's Solutions Group (ESG), my team is responsible for helping to educate and promote EMC's many Microsoft solutions. As you might imagine, there is a lot to talk about so the hardest part about something like this is how to cover everything (for a full listing of our Microsoft activities, be sure to check out this great overview on the Everything Microsoft at EMC Community)! For starters we will be showcasing some key recent EMC solutions...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
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<p><a href="http://www.emcworld.com" target="_blank" title="EMC World 2013">EMC World</a> is just around the corner (May 6-9) and we are busy behind the scenes preparing for a big week!   As part of EMC's Solutions Group (ESG), my team is responsible for helping to educate and promote EMC's many Microsoft solutions.   </p>
<p>As you might imagine, there is a lot to talk about so the hardest part about something like this is how to cover everything (for a <a href="https://community.emc.com/community/connect/everything_microsoft/blog/2013/04/26/lead-your-transformation-with-microsoft-solutions-emc-world-2013?et=watches.email.blog" target="_blank" title="Everything Microsoft at EMC World">full listing of our Microsoft activities, be sure to check out this great overview on the Everything Microsoft at EMC Community</a>)!
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c01901b9a3fce970b-pi" />
	</p>
<p>For starters we will be showcasing some key recent EMC solutions as part of the EMC ESG booth (#1035) at EMC World.   This year we decided to focus on two major application categories that many customers tend to ask us about:  Databases and Collaboration.  Specifically we will have demos, publishes best practices and technical information about:
</p>
<p><strong>Microsoft SharePoint 2013 &amp; Exchange 2013</strong> (&amp; earlier)<strong>
		</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Data Protection including Single Item Level Restore
</li>
<li>Virtualized Deployments for Messaging and Collaboration
</li>
<li>Multi-site Disaster Recovery
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Microsoft SQL Server 2012
</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Highly Available SQL Server (including AlwaysOn Support)
</li>
<li>Xtrem Performance for SQL Databases
</li>
<li>End to End SQL Server Data Protection
</li>
</ul>
<p>The ESG booth will be highlighting integration with many key applications including Oracle, SAP and Cloud &amp; Big Data so it will be a chance for attendees to meet with Subject Matter Experts in one place about their business applications.  
</p>
<p>What's unique about the booth this year is we will have a live art experience taking place all week with a speed painter performing his Paintjam and a contest for someone to win a trip for two to attend any museum in the world!  It should be colorful (sorry, couldn't resist)!
</p>
<p>There are also many sessions devoted to Microsoft technologies.  I'll be presenting a topic entitled "<strong><em>Automate &amp; Provision VNX Storage with Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track Solutions</em></strong>" where I'll be discussing EMC's continued support for Microsoft virtualization and Private Cloud technologies including Microsoft System Center.  The session will cover automation and management orchestrator through our integration with technologies such as Virtual Machine Manager, Operations Manager and Microsoft Orchestrator.  </p>
<p>You can find me on Tuesday, May 5<sup>th</sup> from 5:30-6:30PM in Lando 4201A or Thursday, May 9<sup>th</sup> from 1:00-2:00 in Palazzo A.   Hope to see you there!
</p>
<p>Additional sessions I would recommend for my Microsoft friends and followers include:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<div><strong>Powering Microsoft Applications with VNX</strong> – this is being delivered by my good friend Stefan Voss from EMC's Unified Division.   He is awesome and you won't want to miss this as he discusses in-depth performance and support for key Microsoft workloads!   This session will be on Monday, May 4<sup>th</sup> at 1:00-2:00 and Thursday from 8:30-9:30.
</div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Storage Provisioning, Monitoring &amp; Orchestration of Your Microsoft Applications </strong>– another technical wizard and all around great guy, Giri Basava of our Microsoft Partner Engineering team will discuss <a href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/01/esi-extends-support-for-microsoft-system-center.html" target="_blank" title="ESI for Microsoft Overview">EMC's Storage Integrator (ESI) for provisioning and managing in a Microsoft environment</a>.   Giri is fresh off his presentation at Microsoft's Management Summit (MMS) where he got great feedback!    You can catch him on Tuesday from 4:00-5:00 (he's my warm up act) or Thursday May 9<sup>th</sup> from 1:00-2:00 (which unfortunately you will miss since you'll be in my session).  ;-)
</li>
</ul>
<p>And many more sessions including:
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>IT Trends: Microsoft SharePoint, Office and EMC Documentum – Better Together
</strong></li>
<li><strong>AppSync:  Managing VNX Protection of Critical Microsoft Applications and VMware
</strong></li>
<li><strong>Optimize Business Application Performance &amp; Protection with EMC Solutions for Microsoft, Oracle, SAP &amp; VMware
</strong></li>
<li><strong>VMAX &amp; Application Deployment:  Best Practices for Virtualized Microsoft Applications
</strong></li>
<li><strong>VNX Family Integration with VMware, Microsoft and Citrix Virtualized Environments
</strong></li>
<li><strong>Accelerating SQL and Oracle Database Environments with EMC XtremSW Cache and EMC FAST
</strong></li>
<li><strong>EMC Backup:  Strategies for Backup &amp; Recovery of Microsoft Applications
</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>And that's just the Microsoft focused sessions; there will be A LOT more on EMC technologies including new updates we can't talk about just yet!  We'll also have the Hands-On Labs which have become one of the most popular parts of EMC World!
</p>
<p>Are you a partner?   Be sure to attend our Global Partner Summit that will be taking place at the same time (as well as EMC's SE Conference with all of our field SEs in town for their own separate training including many Microsoft sessions of their own).
</p>
<p>It will be a wild week for sure and a lot of fun!   If you are going then be sure to come by the ESG booth and say hi, I'll be there most of the week!   If you're not going, then hurry up and <a href="http://www.emcworld.com/registration.htm" target="_blank" title="EMC World 2013 Registration">register</a> and book that flight to Vegas!
</p>
<p>See you soon!
</p>
</span></span></div>
</content>



    </entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Managing the Convergence of Technology in the Private Cloud</title>
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        <published>2013-04-16T17:10:23-07:00</published>
        <updated>2013-04-16T17:10:16-07:00</updated>
        <summary>Guest blog post by Roberto Mendizabal, EMC Corporation During the last several years virtualization has taken the center stage and become one of the key enabler technologies for private cloud deployments across many different IT shops. From customers who prefer to deploy their services in-house, as there is still much reluctance to embrace public clouds, primarily due to the short comings in public cloud SLAs, to those customers who need to have full control over their data. While virtualization does facilitate asset consolidation and provide great hardware ROI, it does bring many new challenges such as management and monitoring. As...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
        </author>
        
        
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<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Guest blog post by Roberto Mendizabal, EMC Corporation
</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">During the last several years virtualization has taken the center stage and become one of the key enabler technologies for private cloud deployments across many different IT shops.  From customers who prefer to deploy their services in-house<span style="color: red;">,</span> as there is still much reluctance to embrace public clouds, primarily due to the short comings in public cloud SLAs, to those customers who need to have full control over their data.
</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">While virtualization does facilitate asset consolidation and provide great hardware ROI, it does bring many new challenges such as management and monitoring.  As the consolidation of the hardware and software bring the convergence of heterogeneous technologies together in our data centers, we must now find a way to manage this convergence of elements that were previously managed individually 
</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Until recently, there have been various different management and provisioning offerings that only provide only a partial view into private cloud deployments; but as the heterogeneous technologies come together, it drives the need for better monitoring capabilities and the landscape of tools has changed. 
</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">We are going through an awesome change in the industry.  We are looking to make decisions on how to take advantage of cloud computing deployments, how to embrace it and the single most important part of this trend is your management strategy.
</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">As the consumerization of IT assets is changing, technology providers need to change their approach and integration of the technologies that enable private clouds and that is what EMC has done.
</span></p>
</span>
<p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This blog is going to talk about these management solutions.
</span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I had a chance to participate and represent EMC at this year's <a href="http://2013mms.com" target="_blank" title="Microsoft Management Summit">Microsoft Management Summit 2013</a> in Las Vegas, Nevada. From talking with various attendees, the single largest challenge was the discovery and management of datacenter assets within their own deployments. 
</span></p>
</span>
<p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Another challenge widely discussed was the automation of provisioning processes, and the efficiency that needs to be adopted as part of this new technology consumption that takes place in private clouds 
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In my technical lecture I spoke about the key ingredients that must be part of any private cloud deployment which are: Automated Provisioning, Intelligent Monitoring and Efficient Management.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The strategic response EMC has provided to those customers seeking this effectiveness can be found within the technology features now provided by "<a href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/01/esi-extends-support-for-microsoft-system-center.html" target="_blank" title="ESI Support for System Center">EMC Storage Integrator</a>" or ESI<span style="color: red;">.  </span>It facilitates provisioning integrated with the automation provided by System Center Orchestrator and it's layered by monitoring capabilities found in our System Center Operation Manager management packs.
</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c017eea50348f970d-pi" /><span style="font-family: Arial;">
		</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Taking apart ESI and what it provides customers, we are now able to empower our end users to finally see a view of their assets mapping in a way it can be effectively monitored, viewed and managed. We have been able to take that technology convergence, extend our monitoring layer and extend the necessary management capabilities into these technology assets.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I have repeatedly mentioned the convergence of storage, server &amp; application in your private clouds, but what is more important is the ability our customers have to eliminate the need of requiring multiple resources to manage heterogeneous environments with one single tool. 
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Server and storage consolidation means you're running multiple workloads on a single shared hardware environment, and this was equated in the past that you're not going to get that same performance as if that workload was being deployed on a physical environment.  Hardware has changed and improved so much that we have been able to address these performance issues from a design perspective, but what if performance or provisioning issues were to come from other sources?  Wouldn't it be nice to have a proactive mechanism that allows you to have insight into your utilization and be able to give you the necessary alerts as issues are happening?  That is exactly what EMC's ESI is doing with its integration with SCOM, and now allows us to depart from being reactive, to getting ahead of the issues. 
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">As we now enter a new chapter of more sophisticated monitoring tools, we are now in the driver's seat and can begin to design data centers in our private clouds that will adapt for faster and more unpredictable changes. 
</span></p>
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">
While other vendors are focused on storage topologies and connectivity protocols, I view that the key ingredients to a successful private cloud are automated provisioning, intelligent monitoring and efficient management.  Combining these elements with technology that drives consolidation and effective utilization of share resources, our customer's will be enabled to deploy their private clouds very efficiently.
</span>
<p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">
		 </span></p></div>
</content>



    </entry>
    <entry>
        <title>What Happened in Vegas at MMS 2013 </title>
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        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a012877104c2d970c017c3891a7cd970b</id>
        <published>2013-04-12T18:29:04-07:00</published>
        <updated>2013-04-12T18:28:09-07:00</updated>
        <summary>Wow, what a week! Amazing how fast the time went by this week at Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2013 but that's what happens when you are busy and having fun! We at EMC had a great show and hopefully those attending had a good time as well! A few things I learned this week is that a lot of customers are using System Center 2012 even if they are just kicking the tires and the response has been that the product looks great! We had many people come by the booth to learn about EMC's support for Microsoft System Center...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
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<p>Wow, what a week!  Amazing how fast the time went by this week at <a href="http://www.2013mms.com/" target="_blank" title="MMS 2013">Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2013</a> but that's what happens when you are busy and having fun!
</p>
<p>We at EMC had a great show and hopefully those attending had a good time as well!   A few things I learned this week is that a lot of customers are using System Center 2012 even if they are just kicking the tires and the response has been that the product looks great!  We had many people come by the booth to learn about EMC's support for Microsoft System Center including the management packs for EMC VNX and VMAX storage arrays.  While people were interested in EMC's support for System Center Orchestrator including an Integration Pack for EMC storage commands, most people admitted that they weren't using Orchestrator just yet but they have plans in the next 6 to 12 months.  Interested to learn more?  <a href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/01/esi-extends-support-for-microsoft-system-center.html" target="_blank" title="EMC Support for System Center">Be sure to read my previous blog post on our support for SCOM!</a>
	</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/01/esi-extends-support-for-microsoft-system-center.html"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c017eea34f29b970d-pi" /></a>
	</p>
<p>Many customers were also excited to learn that EMC and Cisco have partnered up again to announce support for the <a href="http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns517/ns224/ns944/sb_privatecloud.pdf" target="_blank" title="Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track Solution v3">Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track solution version 3</a> based on System Center 2012, Windows 2012 and Hyper-V.  These Private Cloud Fast Track solutions help customers easily and quickly deploy a Private Cloud infrastructure pre-built and pre-validated helping to remove the complexity for customers interested in accelerating their journey to a Microsoft Private Cloud. 
</p>
<p>Other topics we were asked about included high availability of Hyper-V virtual machines supporting CSVs (cluster shared volumes) across local and remote sites, backup and recovery of virtualized workloads, best practices for deploying EMC storage with Hyper-V and key application such as Exchange and SQL Server and EMC support for Microsoft Windows 2012 features including SMB 3.0 and ODX (Offloaded Data Transfers).  Not only does EMC support all of these scenarios and technologies but we have solutions showing customers how best to deploy these scenarios in their Datacenter on the <a href="http://www.emc.com/everythingmicrosoft" target="_blank" title="Everything Microsoft at EMC">Everything Microsoft at EMC Community</a>!
</p>
<p> While Microsoft had many sessions at MMS devoted to Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform, I found most customers were interested in creating their own private cloud network using technologies like Windows and System Center in house.  One thing that is for certain, Microsoft virtualization adoption continues to grow at a fast pace and continues to be "Enterprise Ready" as Microsoft has been suggesting since the release of Windows 2012.
</p>
<p>Overall, it was a fun and exciting week!  Thanks to all of our great customers who came by to meet up again or introduce themselves for the first time!  As one show comes to a close we set our sights on the next few with <a href="http://emcworld.com/" target="_blank" title="EMC World">EMC World</a> starting in a few shorts weeks (more to come on this as EMC will have plenty of demos and sessions on Microsoft) and then Microsoft TechEd in early June.  But for now I'll kick back and reminisce on the fun times while listening to the ringing of slot machines in my head.
</p>
</span></span></div>
</content>



    </entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Update from MMS 2013</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/04/update-from-mms-2013.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/04/update-from-mms-2013.html" thr:count="0" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a012877104c2d970c017eea1ee6b7970d</id>
        <published>2013-04-09T18:16:57-07:00</published>
        <updated>2013-04-09T18:21:00-07:00</updated>
        <summary>Yesterday kicked off Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2013 with a keynote from Brad Anderson, Microsoft's VP for Windows Server and System Center. The keynote started with pumped up music from a live DJ during a 25 minute delay leaving the crowd wondering with anticipation, are they building up to something big? And then the show started with a big…thump. The delay? Well that was caused by an Internet outage which was going to make Microsoft's live demos a bit problematic (which also kicked off a series of jokes about availability of the cloud and a solid backup plan. Unfortunately for...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
        </author>
        
        
<content type="xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
<p>Yesterday kicked off <a title="MMS2013" href="http://www.2013mms.com/" target="_blank">Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2013</a> with a keynote from Brad Anderson, Microsoft's VP for Windows Server and System Center.  The keynote started with pumped up music from a live DJ during a 25 minute delay leaving the crowd wondering with anticipation, are they building up to something big?  And then the show started with a big…thump.  
</p>
<p>The delay?  Well that was caused by an Internet outage which was going to make Microsoft's live demos a bit problematic (which also kicked off a series of jokes about availability of the cloud and a solid backup plan.  Unfortunately for Microsoft there wasn't a cloud in site in Vegas.).  Brad then talked about a big year for Microsoft with the release of Windows Server 2012, Windows 8 and System Center 2012 but spent the remainder of the keynote sharing features and facts that quite frankly we've heard before.
</p>
<p>What was the message?  Microsoft provides the ability to manage both private and public cloud; Azure is Microsoft's public cloud option that customers should be using (but don't appear to be) more; Microsoft Hyper-V is better than the "other guys" and especially when running Microsoft workloads on Microsoft technologies; Microsoft provides what they call the Cloud OS which includes all of the software tools to create and manage a virtual Datacenter.
</p>
<p>Sounds good but I don't know the vision was ever realized in the keynote.  While Microsoft provides all of the tools to deploy and manage both public and private clouds, their solution for deploying an Azure like cloud in-house includes software such as System Center, Windows 2012, Hyper-V and SQL Server.  Not exactly something that comes from a box.  Microsoft has faster performance and availability with Hyper-V in 2012 but when giving an example of how Microsoft was able to run 48,000 mailboxes on a single host with 12 Hyper-V virtual machines, Brad made sure to point out this wasn't supported by Microsoft Exchange best practices so than what is the benefit to being faster and more scalable if it isn't supported?  
</p>
<p>While yesterday's keynote fell a little flat with Microsoft looking to make something out of nothing in a year following all of their big product releases, the most exciting thing to talk about was right there all along – System Center 2012!   System Center provides advanced virtual machine management, integration with storage (including EMC) through SMI-S, datacenter monitoring and management, application packaging and deployment, service manager, and workflow automation all from a single toolset!  
</p>
<p>While Microsoft wants Hyper-V adoption to grow and challenge "the other guys", hypervisors are still just an infrastructure layer and only a part of a cloud strategy.  System Center provides all of the key ingredients to managing and deploying applications in the cloud as well as in the physical Datacenter which for many customers is the simple management layer they have been looking for as they transition into virtualization and eventually the cloud.  
</p>
<p>And while talking with customers this week, they too are catching on to the value of System Center.  Almost every customer I've talked with at MMS told me they have deployed System Center 2012 or plan to in the next few months.  
</p>
<p>Microsoft should realize that while a high performing hypervisor is good to show you can compete with "the other guys" and while a public cloud offering helps for those customers who have given up on managing their own environment – it is a single easy to use tool to manage everything in the Datacenter that will help customers get closer to the cloud then ever before.</p>
</span></span></div>
</content>



    </entry>
    <entry>
        <title>A Beginner’s Guide to EMC and Microsoft Management</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/04/a-beginners-guide-to-emc-and-microsoft-management.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/04/a-beginners-guide-to-emc-and-microsoft-management.html" thr:count="0" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a012877104c2d970c017c385937f4970b</id>
        <published>2013-04-04T14:39:07-07:00</published>
        <updated>2013-04-04T14:41:16-07:00</updated>
        <summary>Earlier this week I blogged about all of the great Microsoft Virtualization and Management integration that EMC has been developing and that will be showcased during Microsoft's Management Summit (MMS) next week. But don't take it just from me; here are some articles, blogs, white papers and videos from EMC's Microsoft Specialist and EMC's Solutions Group community highlighting EMC technologies and our support for Microsoft management technologies: How can I not start with Karsten Bott's ESIPSToolkit Series?? Karsten has written a series of Powershell cmdlet blogs showing how to write scripts using Powershell to manage EMC storage arrays. His blogs...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
        </author>
        
        
<content type="xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
<p>Earlier this week I blogged about all of the great Microsoft Virtualization and Management integration that EMC has been developing and that will be <a href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-22543" target="_blank" title="EMC Plans for Microsoft Management Summit">showcased during Microsoft's Management Summit (MMS) next week</a>.
</p>
<p>But don't take it just from me; here are some articles, blogs, white papers and videos from EMC's Microsoft Specialist and EMC's Solutions Group community highlighting EMC technologies and our support for Microsoft management technologies:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<div>How can I not start with Karsten Bott's ESIPSToolkit Series??  Karsten has written a <a href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-21447" target="_blank" title="ESIPSToolkit Blog Series">series of Powershell cmdlet blogs showing how to write scripts using Powershell to manage EMC storage arrays</a>.  His blogs include examples of creating EMC LUNs and connecting to EMC arrays, expanding volumes and working with HBAs.  It is a must see for anyone who is interested in using Powershell to perform storage operations!
</div>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>
<div>Just posted a week ago, a <a href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-23075" target="_blank" title="EMC Integration Pack for Microsoft Orchestrator">presentation showcasing EMC's Integration Pack for Microsoft Orchestrator</a>.  EMC Orchestrator is Microsoft's System Center workflow management tool invoking the use of IT tools and applications to respond to a defined process.  EMC's Integration pack for System Center provides storage actions into a Orchestrator workflow process including connecting hosts and clusters to EMC storage arrays and providing storage provisioning.</div>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>
<div>Another series of great videos from Karsten including <a href="https://community.emc.com/videos/5159" target="_blank" title="Creating a SMB 3.0 Share on EMC VNX">Creating a SMB 3.0 Continuous Access Share on an EMC VNX</a>, <a href="https://community.emc.com/videos/5168" target="_blank" title="How to Create a Clustered Virtual Machine on the EMC VNX Share with SMB 3.0">How to Create a Clustered Virtual Machine on the EMC VNX Share with SMB 3.0</a>, and then <a href="https://community.emc.com/blogs/bottk/2013/03/27/switchover-datamover-to-remote-site-while-vm-s-keep-running-this-is-smb30-on-emc-vnx" target="_blank" title="How to Failover Between EMC VNX Arrays to a Remote Site via SMB 3.0 While the Virtual Machines Remain Highly Available">How to Failover Between EMC VNX Arrays to a Remote Site via SMB 3.0 While the Virtual Machines Remain Highly Available</a>.  
</div>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://community.emc.com/videos/5168" target="_blank" title="Create a Clustered Virtual Machine on EMC VNX Share with SMB 3.0"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c017ee9fc92e0970d-pi" /></a>
  	</p>
<ul>
<li>
Maybe you are involved in planning an upgrade from an earlier version of System Center to System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2012?   Why not read this excellent blog post from one of EMC's many Microsoft Consulting Specialists who provides an <a href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-23108" target="_blank" title="In Place Upgrade to SCOM 2012">overview of the process he took when conducting an in place upgrade of SCOM 2007R2 to SCOM 2012</a>?  
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>A video demonstration showing <a href="https://community.emc.com/blogs/bottk/2013/03/18/deploy-512-windows-desktops-with-vnx-snaps-on-hyper-v" target="_blank" title="How to Deploy Windows Desktops on EMC VNX using SAN based snapshots">how to deploy up to 512 Windows Desktops on an EMC VNX using SAN based snapshot copies with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) Rapid Deployment feature</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-21431" target="_blank" title="EMC Management Integration for Microsoft Private Cloud Solution Overview">EMC Management Integration for Microsoft Private Cloud Solution Overview</a>.  This solution overview consists of a technical white paper, technical articles, video demonstrations and a presentation showcasing how to virtualize multiple Microsoft workloads using highly-available Hyper-V and VMware clusters across multiple storage arrays and being completely managed by Microsoft System Center and EMC Storage Integrator (ESI).  It is an excellent overview for someone looking to build a highly-available and high performance private cloud infrastructure!
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-21431" target="_blank" title="EMC Management Integration for Microsoft Private Cloud Solution Overview"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c017c385937eb970b-pi" /></a>
			</p>
</ul>
<p>Where can you learn more?  Come visit <a href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-22543" target="_blank" title="EMC's Plans for Microosft Management Summit">EMC at Microsoft Management Summit (MMS)</a> next week where we will have many of the technical specialists behind these solutions available to discuss these solutions and more!  If you can't make it to MMS, be sure to visit and follow the <a href="http://www.emc.com/everythingmicrosoft" target="_blank" title="Everything Microsoft at EMC">Everything Microsoft Community</a> for more regular updates like this one highlighting EMC's solutions for Microsoft management and Microsoft technologies!
</p>
<p style="margin-left: 36pt;"> </p>
</span></span></div>
</content>



    </entry>
    <entry>
        <title>EMC Gearing Up for Microsoft Management Summit</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/04/emc-gearing-up-for-microsoft-management-summit.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/04/emc-gearing-up-for-microsoft-management-summit.html" thr:count="0" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a012877104c2d970c017c384c476b970b</id>
        <published>2013-04-02T17:12:34-07:00</published>
        <updated>2013-04-02T17:08:05-07:00</updated>
        <summary>Spring is here which means warmer weather (well maybe not for everyone just yet), the start of baseball and the start of something else - Tradeshow Season! This year we will begin with Microsoft's Management Summit (MMS) 2013 which kicks off in just a few short days running April 8th - 12th in Las Vegas. For those of you not familiar with MMS, it is an annual Microsoft tradeshow focused on management, automation, virtualization and orchestration. Many attendees of MMS are focused on software packaging and deployment, virtualization concepts, overall management and orchestration of key datacenter technologies or in other...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
        </author>
        
        
<content type="xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Spring is here which means warmer weather (well maybe not for everyone just yet), the start of baseball and the start of something else - Tradeshow Season!  This year we will begin with <a href="http://www.2013mms.com/" target="_blank" title="Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2013">Microsoft's Management Summit (MMS) 2013</a> which kicks off in just a few short days running April 8<sup>th</sup> - 12<sup>th</sup> in Las Vegas.  </p>
<p>For those of you not familiar with MMS, it is an annual Microsoft tradeshow focused on management, automation, virtualization and orchestration.  Many attendees of MMS are focused on software packaging and deployment, virtualization concepts, overall management and orchestration of key datacenter technologies or in other words, many of the technologies found in Microsoft System Center 2012 including Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), Operations Manager (SCOM), Configuration Manager (SCCM) and Orchestrator (SCO).
</p>
<p><a href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-22543" target="_blank" title="EMC Key Sponsor for MMS 2013">EMC will once again be a key sponsor for MMS</a> showcasing many of our key products and solutions that simplify data and storage management in a Microsoft Datacenter.  This year EMC will focus on four major themes for MMS:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<div><span style="color: #4f81bd;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Storage Extensions for Microsoft System Center 2012</span>
				</span></div>
<ul>
<li>Storage Reporting and Health Alerts in Operations Manager
</li>
<li>Logical storage reporting including storage pools, snapshot volumes and storage groups
</li>
<li>Physical storage reporting such as disk drives, memory, CPU, network and more
</li>
<li>Orchestration and Automation of EMC Storage
</li>
<li>System Center Orchestrator Integration Packs
</li>
<li>
<div>Powershell cmdlets for EMC storage including volume, array and snapshot management
</div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<div><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 12pt;">Simplifying Storage Management
</span></div>
<ul>
<li>Free EMC tools for provision storage for Windows
</li>
<li>Wizard based automation and orchestration for all virtualization platforms
</li>
<li>Display physical to virtual infrastructure mapping
</li>
<li>
<div>Discover and manage EMC storage natively in Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)</div>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<div><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 12pt;">Microsoft Private Cloud Solutions
</span></div>
<ul>
<li>EMC Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track Solutions for EMC VNX and VNXe
</li>
<li>Pre-validated bundles for Microsoft Virtualization
</li>
<li>Increased virtual performance with EMC storage
</li>
<li>
<div>Microsoft Management Integration
</div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<div><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 12pt;">Protecting Your Private Cloud
</span></div>
<ul>
<li>Instant snapshot backup technology
</li>
<li>Granular recovery of Hyper-V based files
</li>
<li>Full virtual level protection
</li>
<li>Integration with EMC Avamar for virtualization de-duplication
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>EMC also has a breakout session for attendees on Thursday, April 11<sup>th</sup> from 12-1:15 (session WSB-292) on <strong>Private Cloud Storage Management Best Practices with Microsoft and EMC</strong>.
</p>
<p>There will be plenty of prizes and giveaways at the booth and many of EMC's top Microsoft specialists from engineering, solutions, our Microsoft partnership and the field who will be on-site available to meet with customers!  If you are attending and want to set up some dedicated time with EMC specialists, just email me at <a href="mailto:Adrian.Simays@emc.com">Adrian.Simays@emc.com</a>!
</p>
<p>We look forward to seeing you there and expect to see more updates from the show here on my blog!
</p></div>
</content>



    </entry>
    <entry>
        <title>EMC Delivers High Performance for Virtualizing Mission Critical Applications</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/emc-delivers-high-performance-for-virtualizing-mission-critical-applications.html" />
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        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a012877104c2d970c017d425d77f9970c</id>
        <published>2013-03-28T20:30:08-07:00</published>
        <updated>2013-03-28T20:29:30-07:00</updated>
        <summary>Last night I was reading Michael Otey's blog entitled Mission Critical Application Virtualization. The timing of this couldn't have been better as I was reviewing my own slides for a webcast I participated in this morning discussing Virtualizing Microsoft workloads along with one of our customers (replay is available if you're interested). In Michael's blog he talks about many of the same things I was preparing to discuss including that virtualization is no longer just a technology that you may run across when talking to customers but it is an IT staple. Instead of asking, "do you virtualize"? I find...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
        </author>
        
        
<content type="xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Last night I was reading <a href="http://windowsitpro.com/blog/mission-critical-application-virtualization" target="_blank" title="Mission Critical Application Virtualization">Michael Otey's blog entitled Mission Critical Application Virtualization</a>.  The timing of this couldn't have been better as I was reviewing my own slides for a webcast I participated in this morning discussing Virtualizing Microsoft workloads along with one of our customers (<a href="http://www.radicati.com/?p=9361" target="_blank" title="Virtualizing and Consolidating Virtual Exchange and SharePoint">replay is available if you're interested</a>). 
</p>
<p>In Michael's blog he talks about many of the same things I was preparing to discuss including that virtualization is no longer just a technology that you may run across when talking to customers but it is an IT staple.  Instead of asking, "do you virtualize"?  I find myself just assuming and asking,  "so what virtualization technology are you running and what do you virtualize".  
</p>
<p>Michael points out that while performance (or the concern of the impact on performance) has traditionally been the biggest barrier to virtualization but that this really isn't a concern anymore with the advancement in both physical server multi-core CPU and memory scalability as well as the performance improvements in both Hyper-V and vSphere to support up to 64 virtual CPUs and 1TB of RAM.  
</p>
<p>But of course meeting performance demands doesn't stop with the compute or network layer.  To ensure suitable performance especially when consolidating multiple workloads on these high-end servers you need a storage array that can meet the performance demands to handle these workloads but also one that is flexible enough to provide the necessary I/O to the applications that are demanding it at a specific point in time.  Michael's blog highlights SAN technologies such as storage tiering and flash storage as technologies that are well suited for virtualized high-performance workloads.
</p>
<p>This is what makes EMC positioned as the best storage provider for virtualized workloads.  Not only does EMC offer industry leading performance and availability but technologies such as EMC's Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) and <a href="http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2013/20130305-01.htm" target="_blank" title="EMC Press Release Xtrem Flash">EMC's Xtrem flash based products</a> help to ensure applications get the best I\O from the fastest drives in the array while also extending flash technologies to improve performance on the array and even in the physical server.  
</p>
<p>Want proof?  Check out EMC's whitepaper <a href="http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/White_Paper/H10912-EMC-SQLServerDR_RecoverPoint.pdf" target="_blank" title="Advanced Multisite Availability for Microsoft SQL Server 2012">Advanced Multisite Availability for Microsoft SQL Server 2012</a> where EMC's FAST Cache uses flash drives as an I\O accelerator in the array resulting in significant improvements in both transfers per second and transactions per second with the SQL database.
</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c017d425d7758970c-pi" />
	</p>
<p>Still not convinced?  How about this EMC Solution entitled <a href="http://www.emc.com/collateral/white-papers/h11473-ms-exchange-2010-xtremesw-cache-wp.pdf" target="_blank" title="Accelerating Microsoft Exchange 2010 Performance with EMC XtremSW Cache">Accelerating Microsoft Exchange 2010 Performance with EMC XtremSW Cache</a> where EMC's PCIe flash hardware is deployed in a virtualized Exchange 2010 server improving application performance while reducing latency by working as a local storage device handling read and write transactions using the flash card as a local cache while maintaining a copy of the data on the storage array.  
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c017ee9d18478970d-pi" />
	</p>
<p>In this example, total IOPS were improved by 26% - a huge improvement when consolidating multiple virtual workloads on less physical infrastructure!
</p>
<p>As Michael states, there's no reason not to virtualize your mission critical applications especially when EMC has the technology and the documented solutions to help make it a reality!</p></div>
</content>



    </entry>
    <entry>
        <title>ESI Extends Support for Microsoft System Center</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/01/esi-extends-support-for-microsoft-system-center.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/2013/01/esi-extends-support-for-microsoft-system-center.html" thr:count="0" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a012877104c2d970c017c35b419f8970b</id>
        <published>2013-01-13T16:26:35-08:00</published>
        <updated>2013-01-13T16:26:05-08:00</updated>
        <summary>What can be better than a free tool such as EMC's Storage Integrator (ESI) software? The fact that it continues to get better! Last week, EMC released ESI version 2.1 which includes EMC management packs for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM). So what is ESI? If you're not familiar with EMC's Storage Integrator software, it is an easy to use wizard based MMC tool that allows you to easily provision EMC storage for a Windows environment. By answering a few simple questions such as providing a LUN name, selecting a storage pool and choosing a drive letter – ESI...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Virtual Winfrastructure</name>
        </author>
        
        
<content type="xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://vwin.typepad.com/blog/">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
<p>What can be better than a free tool such as EMC's Storage Integrator (ESI) software?  The fact that it continues to get better!  Last week, EMC released ESI version 2.1 which includes EMC management packs for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM).
</p>
<p>So what is ESI?  If you're not familiar with EMC's Storage Integrator software, it is an easy to use wizard based MMC tool that allows you to easily provision EMC storage for a Windows environment.  
</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c017ee7576677970d-pi" />
	</p>
<p>By answering a few simple questions such as providing a LUN name, selecting a storage pool and choosing a drive letter – ESI will take care of all the tasks associated with creating and mounting the new volume on the EMC array and on the Windows server.   What's more, ESI supports creating clustered drives including Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs) and virtual servers including Hyper-V, VMware vSphere and XenServer.
</p>
<p>ESI not only creates new physical and virtual volumes but it also gives a visual representation of the servers and the storage arrays so you can easily see all of the volumes, drives, paths, LUN details and other important information to quickly get details on the storage infrastructure.  And if you're into scripting, no problem since all of the tasks covered in ESI are also available in Powershell cmdlets!
</p>
<p>The ability to provide storage provisioning and physical or virtual to storage mapping has resulted in positive feedback from our customers but due to the growing popularity of Microsoft System Center, customers were also asking for a way to receive alerts and reporting in System Center Operations Manager.
</p>
<p>With version 2.1, customers can now use SCOM to monitor EMC arrays, receive alerts on EMC logical and physical components and get in-depth details on all of these objects to help improve troubleshooting and managing EMC infrastructure in a Microsoft environment.
</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c017ee7576682970d-pi" />
	</p>
<p>EMC's System Center Management Packs work with SCOM 2007 SP1 and SCOM 2012 or SCOM 2012 SP1.  With EMC's Management Packs you can receive advanced reporting details on physical and logical components, configure alert notifications on EMC arrays and view topology diagrams of the storage infrastructure.
</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://vwin.typepad.com/.a/6a012877104c2d970c017ee7576697970d-pi" />
	</p>
<p>Want to see and learn more?
</p>
<p>Be sure to check out the <a href="https://community.emc.com/videos/4708" target="_blank" title="ESI version 2.1 Demo">ESI version 2.1 demo</a> and view the <a href="https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-13891" target="_blank" title="ESI for Windows Suite Product Page">ESI for Windows Suite product page</a> including how to download ESI and receive more information!  </p>
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