Enhancements to EMC Symmetrix V-Max systems is possibly around the corner (FY09 Q4). FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) is due this quarter and will be one of the most awaited software release in the enterprise storage space by EMC. Bundled together with FAST, possibly a new microcode version the enables FAST (its associated features) and other expected enhancements.

The concept of Global Hot Spares has been supported in Clariion environments since the first generation of FC & CX platforms. Now the technology has been extended into the CX3 and then the CX4 platforms. The primary purpose of global hot sparing is to protect the system against disk drive failures.