EMC World 2016 Part 1 - The big news - Unity
EMC World 2016 is over and this year was packed full of announcements and new products. Honestly, there are too many to cover in one go, but let’s talk Unity. Even with some whispers of a “Next-gen VNX”, just about everyone in attendance was taken by surprise by the Unity announcement.
So what exactly is Unity? It’s quite simply EMC saying goodbye to the VNX and it’s Clariion roots. Unity is a 2U powerhouse that comes in All-Flash (you’ll notice an EMC World theme here) or Hybrid configurations. Don’t take my word for it, see the data sheets. There’s even a working Virtual version you can download and play around with below.
First, let's get something out of the way... HTML5 Unisphere! Finally... no more Java frustration! Unified (File) is built right into the DPE, no NAS heads, no data movers, no cabling… It’s right there in the box. But it gets better, one common replication technology for Block, File and vVols. One Snapshot mechanism. Shared Pools for all three options (I.e. FAST VP across all types). Replication and snapshots have matured quite a bit and you can now replicate a Pool, LUN, Consistency Group, NAS Server or just a File Share. File Shares can be accessed via SMB and NFS at the same time! The File system is now 64-bit too, which significantly increases maximums. Starting to see why they call this thing Unity… marketing fluff aside.
Wait a second, did I say vVols? Yes, it supports VMware’s vVols out of the box, bringing the long awaited functionality to vSphere and Storage Admins. I can’t stress how improved the overhauled UI feels, especially considering historical pain-points like performance monitoring. Service data can be viewed directly from Unisphere or from EMC's MyService360, giving you real-time service data visibility plus of product code levels, connectivity status, capacity alerts, service activity by site, etc. Anyone miss PowerLink? Just kidding.
Compression will be rolled out in the very near future and it looks like SSD sizes are set to double and then re-double in the near future thanks to breakthroughs over at Samsung. 3.2TB SSDs are available today with 7TB and potentially 15TB drives coming soon. Could this be why we're also hearing about an all flash Isilon in the works? (more on that later) These new drives and the addition of compression will increase usable capacity by an order of magnitude. The Hybrid model starts around $10k and the all-flash around $18k. Yes, you read that right. Not only are the arrays available today, but they are available in new Vblock and VxRack configurations from VCE, as well. There’s much more, but hopefully you’re starting to get a sense for this new beastie and for EMC’s new and improved mid-range vision.
We came hungry for new products and EMC apparently knew it... They brought out Duran Duran to empathize!