EMC embarks on all-singing, all-dancing VNX jamboree

EMC World 2014 EMC has had a VNXgasm and announced future software for VNX, plus a buffed up VNXe box, a VSPEX addition, and the company is also making more encryption options available.

The VNX software is coming via Project Liberty and thus includes freedom from hardware lock-in presumably, and is virtualised storage software that is based on the VNX platform. EMC talks of a variety of deployment models, saying it could be used by test and developers to spin up virtual VNX arrays for virtual servers and ROBO locations, hybrid public/private cloudy deployments, and in software-defined data centres.

You get the feeling that EMC sees VNX primarily as a test-and-dev thing and not a serious software storage array like HP's StoreVirtual or VMware's VSAN or, indeed, its own ScaleIO. It will be an on-ramp to speed VNX-dependent app development.

The Liberty development has to embrace, we suppose, both the VNXe and the VNX software environments, which are different; VNXe's software being more integrated in the file and block area.

With VNX and VMAX now in the same engineering organisation inside EMC we might see even see a software VMAX.

There is a new VNXe entry-level system, the VNXe3200 and it's a souped up model that has been given Fibre Channel connectivity; welcome to the big guys storage networking club you little iSCSI and NAS squirt.

VNXe3200

Basically it's the addition of the same VNX technology enhancements from last September applied to a VNXe box.

It gets MCx multi-core controller processor optimisations, FAST Cache SSD caching and FAST VP auto-tiering, like the full-fledged VNX arrays. EMC might as well drop the 'e' from VNXe. (FAST Means Fully-Automated Storage Tiering.) Here's a table of config details:

The VNXe range used to have two members; VNXe3300 and a 3150. It now appears to have just the 3200.

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EMC embarks on all-singing, all-dancing VNX jamboree