Surveyed users also forecasted that little would change in the way they utilize storage subsystems over the coming year. If true, I would think this bodes well for EMC, especially in light of the results of two key findings presented the SUDS, 2011 report.

out in front of growing storage markets

First, IDC is forecasting a significant capacity growth trend for high-end external storage for the coming years…increasing from just short of 30% annual capacity growth in 2011 to more than 40% growth in 2013. I believe this is a very realistic projection, especially given the strength of VMAX’s market share gains over the past 2+ years. Even as the mid-range is playing an ever-increasing role, the average capacity of Symmetrix arrays has also grown steadily over the past decade. Since VMAX is inarguably the most scalable enterprise array in the market (a point I recently underscored on this blog).

The second finding in the SUDS report is perhaps even more provocative. With respondents distributed across USA, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Europe, EMC was selected as the platform of choice for 7 out of 8 applications. From SAP to Oracle applications to business analytics to VDI to Exchange & Sharepoint, users around the globe indicated an overwhelming preference for EMC storage for their applications.

Again, given the strength of both EMC’s VNX and VMAX product lines, I’m not really surprised.

What *IS* perhaps surprising is that both IBM and Hitachi are virtual no-shows in this survey. IBM appears twice and Hitachi only once among the top 3 selections across 8 applications. I tend to support IDC’s observation – customers are predominately electing to go with best-of-breed pure-play storage offerings. I almost daily have discussions with customers who are most interested in the highly differentiated capabilities and trusted track record of EMC’s information infrastructure products to compliment whatever happens to be the server du jour of their shop.

Admittedly, Data at Rest Encryption is a feature that is offered by very few storage platforms – it is almost exclusively found only on enterprise-class arrays, in fact. And of all the implementations, Symmetrix VMAX’s D@RE implementation is highly differentiated – a breed apart from would-be competitors (as is FAST VP, VMAX’s automated storage tiering implementation, but that’s not today’s story).

Separating VMAX D@RE from everyone else  are features such as:

• Support for any and all drive types supported by VMAX. Where some other implementations are limited to offering encryption only on special drives with built-in encryption, VMAX D@RE encrypts all the data on all the Flash EFD drives, enterprise 10K and 15K HDDs, and 7200rpm “slow-spin” HDDs;
• A unique key for each and every drive in the system. With up to 2400 unique keys in a full-blown VMAX, the life of a crypto-criminal is much more difficult, especially as compared to competitive offerings that support a max of 31 keys for the entire array (the more data protected by a single key, the easier it is to find the key);
• Complete and transparent data at rest encryption for any and all hosts, applications and storage services, including Virtual Provisioning, FAST VP, SRDF, TimeFinder, VAAI, etc.
• Automated assignment of unique keys to every replacement drive and rekeying of data as the drives are rebuilt;
• Virtually undetectable performance overhead for either encryption or decryption (see chart at right);
• The ability to remove the keys from the array altogether when physically relocating the array as added protection against the accidental or malicious loss of the array (or drives) during the move. Deliver the array and the keys to the new locale separately, and restart the array without delay after the two are reunited.

To my knowledge, no other enterprise storage array offers all of these native capabilities of VMAX D@RE.

Arguable, I could stop there. But wait…

It gets BETTER!

fips 140-2 validation

This past week EMC was notified by the USA’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) that the VMAX D@RE implementation has been validated as complying with FIPS 140-2, Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules.

While not an endorsement of any kind by these bodies, this validation streamlines the procurement of VMAX D@RE by federal agencies requiring products and capabilities that are compliant with the FIPS 140-2 requirements.

To my knowledge, no other Data at Rest implementation by any enterprise storage competitor (or enterprise wanna-bee, for that matter) has obtained such validation.

Further underscoring the Powerful, Trusted and Smart tag line we used to launch 5875 at the beginning of 2011, FIPS 140-2 validation joins Common Criteria access control, authentication and audit controls validation that was granted back in 2009 for VMAX (and for DMX prior to that). And as with Common Criteria, the fact that there is at least one FIPS 140-2 validated solution in its space gives VMAX a distinct advantage over non-validated offerings.

And even if the US Federal Government doesn’t keep up its pace of deficit spending, I’m sure private sector enterprises around the globe will prefer the only data at rest encryption solution that has been validated compliant with the US governments cryptographic procurement requirements.

And for those that purchase a new VMAX this quarter forward, look for the “FIPS 140-2 Inside” logo to join “Intel Inside” on the doors of D@RE-enabled VMAXes (pending completion of the paperwork, of course ).

The trailer for The Double has been released and VMAX plays a very prominent role in several of the scenes, which bodes well for its role in the actual film which hits theatres on Sept. 23rd.

Coming soon to a theatre near you: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/thedouble/

(Interesting coincidence of a post number, don’t you think?)

technorati tags: EMC, Symmetrix, VMAX, The Double

Although Hu Yoshida chose to show the top 10 largest Hitachi arrays as evidence of the benefits of virtualized external storage, his rebuttal to my response post claims that Hitachi isn't in competition with EMC to see who can ship the largest box.

Not surprising, I guess. Especially when the evidence reveals that there are no customers daring enough to push a Hitachi array beyond 1.4PB usable.

You can't compete if you can't demonstrate that you can deliver what customers want.

And that's exactly the point that Hu misses:

It isn't about what EMC tries to sell.
it is about what CUSTOMERS want to buy.

It is the customer who decides how much data they want to put into their arrays, if/when/and how much they want to consolidate, what and when to migrate to a new platform.

Oh sure, EMC analyzes customer requirements, provides recommendations, proposes configurations, and proffers references to help customers make an informed decision. But it is always the customer who determines which is the most appropriate (and cost-effective) solution for their needs.

And the evidence clearly shows that Symmetrix customers are more confident that VMAX can support larger configurations than are USP/USP-V/VSP customers.

Larger configurations help drive down costs through consolidation and efficiencies of scale. They also simplify operations and deployments. Symmetrix Federated Live Migration provides seamless tech refresh to effect consolidation of older arrays without any application downtime – and without the significant (and continuous) I/O latency overhead of an in-band virtualization approach such as Hitachi's. VMAX Virtual Provisioning has a more efficient granularity than the Hitachi equivalent, VMAX's integration with VMware is second to none, and VMAX FAST VP literally runs circles around HDT by reacting faster and moving less data to deliver highly-optimized performance for dynamic workloads.

But the bottom line is this: customers vote with their wallets.

Given that, VMAX must be doing something right: IDC StorageTracker data shows that VMAX's market share has grown significantly vs. USP-V/VSP and IBM DS8K since its introduction in April 2009.

And before I'm accused of doling out the kool-aid yet again, I in fact do know many of the customers behind the top 10 VMAX arrays first hand – many are big names in their respective markets and geographies. And each made careful, educated and informed decisions when they opted for the proven, scalable capabilities of VMAX over the alternatives.

VMAX: Powerful. Trusted. Smart.
 

technorati tags: EMC,Symmetrix,VMAX,Storage Consolidation,Scale-out,Federated Live Migration,Hu Yoshida

I had to laugh, especially given Hitachi's long-standing (and ridiculous) claims of supporting more than 240-something PB of external capacity.

For the record, being launched in April 2009, VMAX has indeed been shipping longer than VSP, but not as long as the USP-V. VMAX also does not (at the time of this writing) support virtualization of external storage.

With those caveats, herewith the top 10 VMAX arrays, sorted by usable internal capacity:

That's right, folks. The smallest of the top-10 VMAX arrays is larger than all reported VSPs and all but 2 of the largest USP-Vs.

Note also that several of these VMAX arrays are over-provisioned. Leveraging Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning, these arrays are exporting more capacity than they physically support contain. This affords customers improved capacity utilization, driving up efficiencies and driving down acquisition and operational expenses. In addition, most of these arrays are already positioned to leverage the benefits of Symmetrix FAST VP (if they aren't already – you can't tell from this report).

I have to say, though, that I almost spewed coffee on my keyboard when I read Hu's claim that the largest USP-V was actually virtualizing TWENTY FOUR frames from different vendors.

In an age when floor space, power, cooling, maintenance charges and operational complexity are seen as negatives to the bottom line, I'm actually quite surprised that there is even one USP-V customer operating in such an extremely inefficient manner.

It is quite probable that this poor customer would realize significant savings were he/she to replace that multi-headed behemoth of intertwined FC switches and multi-vendor arrays with the elegant simplicity of a single VMAX.

At the very least, he or she wouldn't be such a lonely pioneer of mega-capacity consolidation.
 

technorati tags: VMAX,EMC,Symmetrix,Big Data,Hitachi,VSP,USP-V,capacity,virtualization,efficiency,utilization,virtual provisioning,FAST VP,Fully Automated Storage Tiering,Hitachi Math

You may have seen the following appearances (clockwise from top left):

• 24 (Fox)
• Nikita (CW Network)
• Covert Affairs (USA Network)
• Mayor Bloomberg's Press Conference on NYC's new City Agency data center
• 60 Minutes report on Speed Traders at NYSE

But wait! There's more!

vmax hits the big screen

Most recently, VMAX is playing a supporting actor role in Transformers 3, now showing in theatres around the world.

vmaxe hits the small screen

Not to be outdone, the new VMAXe has already made its first cameo appearance, albeit on a slightly lower-budget stage than its bigger brother has been seen. Still, it is a powerful appearance, coupling both live customer feedback on how easy and efficient VMAXe is, plus a killer demonstration of the incredibly powerful VMware integration that is provided at no additional charge for VMAX and VMAXe customers alike.

So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome VMAXe to Chad's World! (click the image below to be taken to the Chad's World home page, then click the image there again to see the video). VMAXe appears at around the 6 minute mark, if you'd like to skip over the intro (no offense Chad, but many of my readers like to get right to the point).

After viewing the video I think you'll agree that seeing these things in action live, in front of a real customer, is a lot better than some shill corporate blogger trying to convince you that their company has uniquely solved the problems of the modern storage admin. Or reading some official-looking report by some hired "independent" reviewer that makes outlandish claims about the "savings" advantage that a new, yet-to-be-shipped product has over VMAX (claims that were in fact made obsolete the moment we introduced VMAXe).

The neat thing is this: everybody seems to enjoy putting the spotlight on VMAX (and now, VMAXe).

That's OK with me!

technorati tags: EMC,Symmetrix,VMAXe,24,Covert Affairs,Nikita,TF3,Transformers 3,Chad's World,Customer References

Imagine:

• Start with the world's most Powerful, Trusted and Smart enterprise storage array, hardened by almost 23 years of protecting the world's most critical information assets.
• Scale down its Intel-based infrastructure and dial-back its innovative scale-out architecture to optimize for less-demanding enterprise environments.
• Remove the layers of complexity associated with supporting legacy hosts such as mainframes and iSeries to simplify configuration and operations.
• Eliminate physical drive and RAID configuration altogether and pre-configure the array at the factory for pool-based Virtual Provisioning to radically simplify resource allocation and management while maximizing utilization efficiency.
• Allow customers to add factory-configured Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST VP) to further drive down the acquisition AND operational costs of both capacity AND performance.
• For local and remote data protection, include the world's most widely adopted heterogeneous Continuous Data Protection and Remote Replication capability, EMC RecoverPoint.
• Simplify the product installation to no more than a 4 hours to power-up, and 4 minutes to first I/O after the keys are handed over to the customer.
• Package that all in standard 19" racks configured to optimize floor tile utilization, requiring only single-phase power as evidence of reduced power requirements and deployment simplicity.
• Oh, and don't forget the trademark blue LED bar and one of those fancy little "e" thingies that the VNX guys introduced earlier this year.

What do you get?
 

emc Symmetrix VMAX^e, that's what!

Optimized for enterprises with requirements that fall somewhere between the robust capabilities of EMC's VNX (mid-tier) and the smaller end of VMAX (enterprise) platforms, VMAXe brings the proven reliability and scale of the Symmetrix massively parallel multi-controller architecture to an expanded range of customers, markets and geographies.

All but gone is the complexity of yesteryear that competitors continually try to associate with today's Symmetrix. Factory pre-configured, rapid delivery and streamlined storage management. Pool-based Virtual Provisioning that simplifies storage allocation down to "how many gigabytes, to which host(s)?" – delivered in minutes and key clicks instead of hours with spreadsheets. Add in FAST VP, and answer one more question "with what performance policy," and the system does the rest – balancing capacity across 2- or 3-tiers based on the policy and the workloads dynamically changing working set. Need local or remote replication? Easy – add in RecoverPoint, natively integrated to simplify deployment, configuration and operations. And you can even use a VNX as the remote target for VMAXe – or vice versa!

By eliminating unnecessary "distractions" (i.e., features not typically used in greenfield deployments of an array), VMAXe delivers extremely competitive operational efficiency without sacrificing the power, trust and innovation that is the foundation of Symmetrix burgeoning market share (>50% in Q1'11, according to IDC Storage Tracker).

Built upon standard 19" racks and employing reduced built-in battery hold-up, VMAXe reduces power, space and cooling requirements. The packaging also enables new deployment flexibility such as system bay dispersion, such that expansion bays need not be physically adjacent to the initial cabinet(s) – flexibility that is demanded in today's increasingly overcrowded data centers.

Improved simplicity and scaled back does not mean dumbed down, however. Built upon the same core Virtual Matrix architecture and the latest release of Enginuity (5875+), VMAXe delivers the same access security, end-to-end data integrity, unparalleled FAST VP automation, and even Federated Live Migration (FLM) for non-disruptive tech refresh from the Symmetrix DMX family.

• Space efficient Thin Provisioning with inherent Wide Striping? Check.
• Zero Space Reclaim on demand and via the new T10 WRITE_SAME and UNMAP? Check.
• FC, FCoE and iSCSI host connect? Check.
• Dynamic Cache Partitioning? Check.
• Role-based administration and performance management? Check.
• Flash, Enterprise and Bulk Capacity Drives? Check.
• VMware integration with Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) and VAAI? Check.
• SMI-S management APIs? Check.
• Operational compatibility with Symmetrix VMAX? Check.

the secret sauce

And for my readers who come here for the inside scoop on things, one of the key differences of VMAXe vs. VMAX is how it leverages the Intel Xeon processor architecture. Where VMAX engines are built upon the Quad-core Intel "Harperton" processors (8 cores per Director, 16 per engine) and PCIe Gen1, VMAXe leverages the newer PCIe Gen2 and Hyper-threaded Intel "Westmere" processors (4 cores per Director, 8 per Engine). Yet each VMAXe engine supports similar the same number of open systems front-end connections and the same number of back-end (redundant) drive channels.

How?

The secret is the aforementioned Hyper-threading, which allows each core to execute two separate program streams simultaneously. The version of Enginuity for VMAXe thus operates "identically" to that on a standard VMAX, only it uses 8 "virtual cores" (my term, not Intel's) instead of 8 real cores, gleaning increased performance out of a lower-cost processor complex.

Cool, huh?

new markets, new channels, new opportunities

But what is really important is that VMAXe brings the power of Symmetrix VMAX to an entirely new set of customers. VMAX enterprise customers may find VMAXe ideal for departmental or development deployments. And Service Providers looking for robust availability, predictable performance and simplified deployment along with market-leading VMware and HyperV integration will undoubtedly want to take a look at VMAXe.

But of course, the primary target is those smaller enterprises whose performance and availability requirements exceed that of the traditional "mid-tier" products, but whose budgets and scale requirements can't support a full-blown VMAX. For these customers, a 2-engine VMAXe will be a better fit than a stripped-down single-engine VMAX – and they'll still have room to grow, up to the maximum 960 drives (~1.3PB usable) that a 4-engine VMAXe can support.

Many of these customers will be found in the traditional market spaces and geographies. But perhaps the majority of them will fall outside of EMC's direct-sales footprint, and in emerging markets where channels play a bigger role in technology delivery. A key part of the VMAXe plan is to embrace and expand the reseller channel for the product, and the product pricing, packaging and delivery has been developed to be very channel-friendly.

of overlaps and such

Although there's probably nobody left who believe that any single storage platform can meet all imaginable storage requirements, there will undoubtedly be some who will question the logic of adding yet another new storage platform to EMC's already broad portfolio. On paper, (they will argue), it is already so confusing.

I think it's rather simple, actually:

See, the stark reality is that overlap is not only a good thing (it leaves no gaps for competitive intrusion), it is a very formidable competitive advantage as well. Overlap in the portfolio affords an EMC sales representative (direct or channel) a unique advantage: the ability to offer choice and fit-for-purpose. Where start-ups and one-trick ponies must seek out customers whose needs fit their particular capabilities, EMC offers a comprehensive suite of solutions to meet virtually any storage requirement a customer may have. With sales cycles that can stretch for months and purchase decisions based upon not only the price of the deal, but the trust and commitment between the supplier and the consumer, having the right product(s) that are tailor-made for whatever the the customers' needs may be helps to optimize both customer satisfaction and selling efficiency.

Whether block, file, object or backup, for Home, SOHO, small-, medium- or large- enterprises – EMC has the most comprehensive storage portfolio on the planet.

I could go on, but in the course of preparing for the launch of VMAXe, one of the industry analysts seemed to find just the rights words to explain the overall VMAXe strategy and the important role it will fulfill in the EMC portfolio. If you will, take a moment to review the Product Brief written by Mark Peters, Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group: EMC Symmetrix VMAXe: A Missing Piece of the Storage Jigsaw.

ESG Senior Analyst Terri McClure adds her perspectives in this short video:

competition?

No, not really

OK, seriously, there are definitely other products in this space, although none with the pedigree of Symmetrix. Without naming names, one is getting rather long in the tooth, having missed a refresh cycle due to an acquisition (and a confusing product portfolio). Another has recently updated its hardware, yet still is hampered by poor raw capacity utilization and slllloooooooowwwwwww response times due to its dependency upon only mirrored SATA/Fat SAS capacity.

With VMAXe as a very real challenger (it has already won several competitive deals since it began shipping late last quarter), I am confident that we will see competitive reactions in short order.

Let the games begin!

technorati tags: Simple,Intelligent,Modular,Storage,Easy,EMC,Symmetrix,VMAXe,VMAX,FAST VP,Powerful,Smart,Efficient,Service Providers,VNX,FAST V2