FAST (FULLY AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERING). FAST made a debut in the storage market yesterday (12/08/09). Finally after the market buzz we got a preview of the product in terms of its features, functionality, characteristics, possible shortcomings and use cases. This blog post focuses on the features, the drawbacks and some applications around FAST. By no means is this a comprehensive or an exhaustive list of the above.

Truly this was one of the most awaited products of 2009 from EMC after the initial announcement by EMC back in April 2009 along with the release of Symmetrix V-Max. Along with FAST, EMC has also introduced some new enhancements to the EMC Symmetrix V-Max, Clariion CX4 and Celerra NS platforms. Currently FAST will be available on the above 3 platforms at debut and will provide automated storage tiering “in-the-box” for Symmetrix V-Max, “in-the-box” for Clariion CX4 and “out-of-box” for Celerra NS platforms.

So next year will mark a history of Symmetrix Products within EMC, still classified as one of the most robust systems out there after 20 years of its inception. In this blog post, we will talk about some facts on Symmetrix products as it relates to its features, characteristics, Enginuity microcode versions, model numbers, year released, etc.

In this post, we will discuss all requirements and limitations that are associated with EMC Clariion RAID-6 Implementation.

HDS telegraphed that a big announcement was coming today. They even made it fun, with a (literally) cryptic blog entry to make sure we were all watching. But the announcement of High Availability Manager, a software product to manage existing HDS USP-V and USP-VM arrays, underwhelmed. It isn’t HDS’ answer to the EMC Symmetrix V-Max and it’s forthcoming FAST technology.

Traditional storage arrays permit the configuration of multiple disk types within a single array. This can range from solid state disks (SSDs), through to fast fibre channel drives and slower high capacity SATA drives. USS operates a slightly different model – all drives in the USS array are high capacity SATA. SSD drives are then used to ameliorate performance on read and write activity in combination with the ZFS file system, by using the SSDs for read caching and write logging.

VMware has cranked out another update to their flagship enterprise product, ESX 3.5. The last update came out in early November, 2008, and included some major new functionality. What’s in store this time to intrigue storage folks? Not much.

There has been a big chatter about the next generation of EMC machines. After the initial release of DMX-3’s in 2005 and then the DMX-4’s in 2007, next generation DMX is almost due now. Here is my wish list or expectations on the new DMX Platform.

The announcements are starting to pile up; nothing dramatic yet tho’ but we are probably at the start of the year when most Storage vendors refresh their main product lines and it’s going to be interesting to see the variety…