EMC Gives SRM a Virtual Twist

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The latest release of EMC’s flagship storage resource management (SRM) software includes support for VMware and better reporting capabilities.

EMC ControlCenter 6.0, which the storage giant is billing as its biggest upgrade in years, now offers extensive support for VMware Infrastructure 3 software and also includes improvements in flexibility and customization for SRM reporting. Giving customers the ability to discover, map, provision and report on virtual server environments helps them reap more of the benefits of virtualization, the company says.

VMware Infrastructure customers “tell us they want to surround their virtualized environments with diagnostic tools that provide complete end-to-end visibility to account for the physical infrastructure,” said Brian Byun, vice president of global partners and solutions at VMware. EMC ControlCenter “enables our joint customers to simply and effectively manage storage resources in mixed virtual and physical environments.”

ControlCenter’s more than 7,000 users will now be able to conduct discovery, problem management, compliance, change management, provisioning and reporting of VMware ESX Server host and guest servers, enabling SRM in virtual environments. ControlCenter complements VMware’s VirtualCenter software by providing end-to-end storage relationship information, from a VMware ESX server host to the physical array devices.

Users can view properties, capacity and usage information for a VMware ESX server host and corresponding virtual machines. The solution discovers individual VMware ESX Server guests — including guest name, OS version and IP address — and reports the capacity of virtual disk files and raw storage devices mapped to each virtual machine guest. ControlCenter 6.0 also helps users provision, mask and zone storage to VMware ESX server hosts.

Jon Siegal, EMC Resource Management Software senior product marketing manager, said the addition of VMware support is part of EMC’s move into broader IT management.

“It’s a natural progression,” said Siegal. “We’re looking at this across the data center, not just storage. It’s the most comprehensive solution in the storage market.”

ControlCenter 6.0 also offers improvements in flexible and custom reporting. With several new reporting methods, users can harness the breadth and depth of data discovered by ControlCenter and tailor it to specific business requirements. For example, the new Query Builder feature within EMC StorageScope software provides open access to a centralized reporting repository as well as customized reporting. ControlCenter 6.0 also brings EMC ControlCenter StorageScope and EMC ControlCenter StorageScope File Level Reporter together, for a single interface and infrastructure for enterprise-wide and file-level reporting.

The software also includes expanded heterogeneous platform support, with active management capabilities for Hitachi storage arrays and support for vendors’ storage platforms with CTP-certified SMI-S 1.1 providers.

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