EMC Buys Syncplicity as EMC World Kicks Off

EMC announced it has acquired privately held Syncplicity, a cloud-based file management solutions provider.The deal was announced as the 2012 EMC World got underway this week in Las Vegas, and was accompanied by news about product announcements being made at the event.

Syncplicity provides native cloud-based sync and file share capabilities, enabling organizations to manage, sync, share and backup files across its' extended enterprise.  The company will be integrated with EMC's Information Intelligence Group.

"It's our core belief that productivity and security are not mutually exclusive," said Rick Devenuti, President, Information Intelligence Group at EMC.  "In acquiring Syncplicity, we validate this concept by uniting enterprise ‘sync and share' capabilities for the cloud with governance and rigor that is synonymous with Documentum. As cloud, social and mobile dominate the way work gets done, our customers require more than simple containers for managing and sharing content. With Syncplicity, we will deliver best-in-class solutions for true extended enterprise collaboration."

New VMAX Family Products

EMC announced the new EMC VMAX Family, consisting of the VMAX 10K, VMAX 20K and the newest member of the family, the VMAX 40K. The new EMC VMAX Family is a comprehensive lineup of enterprise storage arrays, all built upon the  Virtual Matrix Architecture first introduced in April 2009. Supporting up to 4 Petabytes of usable capacity, the new VMAX 40K uses 2.5" SAS drives in a high density option, to utilize 1/3 smaller footprint and 1/3 less power than the equivalent configuration using 3.5" drives. The VMAX 40K leverages up to 32 2.8GHz Intel Xeon 6-core processors and as much as 2TB of mirrored and ECC-protected DDR3 DRAM.

With the addition of Federated Tiered Storage customers can now use trusted Symmetrix SRDF and TimeFinder software for business continuity. The new Unisphere for EMC VMAX is an advanced management interface that simplifies and streamlines storage operations and management while providing a common look and experience across the entire EMC VMAX Family. EMC's Global Marketing CTO Chuck Hollis runs through the evolution of the flagship Symmetrix VMXAX line and goes into the details of the features.

"The Hybrid Cloud and Big Data are two transformative mega-trends in the industry today," said Brian Gallagher, President, Enterprise Storage Division at EMC.  "More and more IT professionals are embracing these trends to make their businesses run smarter and more efficiently. With today's news, the VMAX Family is building upon its existing portfolio of high end solutions, and delivering new hardware and software capabilities that are purpose-built for these Hybrid Cloud environments. As the IT industry embarks on one of its most transformative eras with the onset of cloud and Big Data, the market-leading VMAX Family continues to set the pace for the high end storage market."

EMC VNX Family Enhancements

EMC introduced the new VNXe 3150 storage system, combining 50% more performance and capacity per rack unit. New VNX storage pool enhancements allow mixing of RAID types within a storage pool - for example RAID 5 for Flash and RAID 6 for NL-SAS. New VNX Snapshot capabilities now support 256 writable snaps per Logical Unit Number (LUN) for up to 32,000 per system (depending on VNX system size), as well as snapshots of snapshots, making it ideal for testing, development and disk backups.

"EMC's multifaceted enhancements to its VNX unified storage family hit on many different, crucial storage pain points experienced by IT generalists," said Mark Peters, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.  "EMC's transformation of its midrange storage offerings — for example, focusing on FLASH 1^st ' single-click application protection and analytics in VMware environments — demonstrates its deep understanding of its target customers. Simplicity, cost-effectiveness, efficiency and automation are all paramount in these IT environments, and EMC is clearly a leader in providing effective unified storage solutions."

EMC World 2012 continues this week through Thursday, and can be followed on twitter through Twitter hashtag #EMCWorld.