Nutanix CEO On Cisco's Hardware Problem, Dell's Dual Hyper-Converged Strategy And Why He Doesn't View HPE-SimpliVity 'As A Competitor'

Nutanix: The Hyper-Converged Pioneer Nutanix CEO Dheeraj Pandey says tech giants like Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Cisco lack "conviction" in hyper-convergence regardless of acquisitions both have made in the market. "Whatever we were talking about in 2012, is what HPE is talking about in 2018, 'We can get servers and attach some storage to it and hopefully this will be a good solution for the midmarket or the SMB.' But the problem with HPE is lack of conviction," said Pandey, in an interview with CRN. The San Jose, Calif.-based hyper-converged infrastructure pioneer recently reported first fiscal quarter 2018 sales of $275 million, up 46 percent year over year, while deferred revenues increased nearly 50 percent to $409 million. Pandey said over the coming quarters, Nutanix will adopt a software-centric strategy to expand its total addressable market. Pandey talks to CRN about its software transformation, competition with the likes of Cisco and HPE, and if Nutanix will remain an independent company.

What is your view of the new HPE with SimpliVity?

At the end of the day, we don't even look at HPE-SimpliVity as a competitor because you need the entire operating system. You need the whole stack. You need software-defined storage, but you also need the hypervisor, software-defined networking, software-defined security, you need operations management, systems management, automation – all these pieces have to come together to build an operating system. People don’t just want to buy a hyper-converged box, they're saying, 'Either I go to the cloud or if I stay on-premise, it better be as good as cloud.' So you need to have a holistic operating system story. Software-defined storage is a part of it, but it's only a small part of it.

Are you seeing any market share gain or loss since HPE launched its first joint hyper-converged product this year?

Whatever we were talking about in 2012, is what HPE is talking about in 2018 saying, 'We can get servers and attach some storage to it and hopefully this will be a good solution for the midmarket or the SMB.' Because they want to sell 3PAR and Synergy and all that stuff at the high end of the pyramid, then they want to sell Nimble in the middle of the pyramid, and sell SimpliVity at the base of the pyramid for SMB's. It doesn't work like that. You cannot hedge your way into architecture. You cannot hedge your way into transformation. You have to go all-in, which is what the largest companies like Oracle and Microsoft and Adobe had to do to transform themselves.

So the SimpliVity acquisition doesn't affect Nutanix?

SimpliVity is a little tuck-in that will now be a swim lane in HPE's portfolio. While it's good to charm the analyst, the media, the pundits, at some level if your sellers don’t have the conviction, that there's only one path forward in the re-architecture for the enterprise -- you will basically always be a 'me-too' product.

What are your thoughts on Cisco HyperFlex and their acquisition of SpringPath this year?

It's the exact same argument [for Cisco]. You go back to, you can't have swim lanes where you're saying, 'I'm going to work with Pure [Storage] at the high-end. I'm going to work with someone in the middle segment of the market, and by the way, I'll have HyperFlex just as a way to distribute software.' It doesn't work like that. You can't hedge bet. You can't have a FlexPod and a Pure stack and then something else. You need conviction on what does it mean to transform your customer's business. You can't create ten ways. You can't sit on the sidelines when this massive disruption is happening in cloud computing.

How do you view Cisco as a hyper-converged competitor?

They don’t have an operating system. You need to have an entire stack to go and say, 'Am I better than VMware's vSAN? Am I even getting close enough to the AWS and Azure experience?' Because that is the fork in the road for customers, 'Do I buy VMware and do things on-prem? Or do I look at Amazon or Azure?' So hyper-convergence by itself was a good story in 2012, but today, that idea of software-defined storage running on commodity servers is five years too late by itself.

Can Cisco stay in the hardware business?

It all depends on what the next few years have in store. Look, they all wanted to be in the enterprise mobile computing business five years ago when Apple was seeping into the enterprise with BYOD.  They had tablets, HP acquired Palm, and Cisco had a Cius tablet with Android and things like that – they all had aspirations. At some point when they started to see AWS get into the enterprise a few years ago, they all had cloud vision, but it wasn't done right. So large companies do things just because they feel like they have a better account control than some of these insurgent and new startups or outsiders like Amazon, like Nutanix.

A big focus for @DellEMC in 2018 is their own hyper-converged #VxRail offering. Where does your relationship look like with Dell next year?

They are also trying to figure out their own swim lanes because they have the #VMAX product and the #VNX product, the #Compellent product, VxRail product. We just happen to be one more swim lane in that sense. The thing is that, if they can sort that out, the partnership will get sorted out automatically. They are expecting the market forces to basically create a pull for the different swim lanes saying, 'There'll be people who like to buy #VxBlock, people who like to buy a VNX midrange product, people who like to buy VxRail, and people who love #XC because they love @Nutanix .'

Why is Nutanix adopting a software-centric strategy?

One of the good things about Nutnaix is how we continue to expand our TAM. … When we went and gave our software to OEM partners -- first Dell, then Lenovo, then finally IBM -- we said, 'Let them go and build different reference designs based on our software, and let that thing compete with the marketplace with our own NX appliance.' Then about 12 to 18 months ago, we started doing these ELA's which is like software consumed at scale. With some of the very large customers we had, we said, 'Let's have them completely decouple hardware consumption with software.' They were saying, 'Software appreciates, hardware depreciates. I want to get our business going with you where I can buy all the software and get all the discounting up front, and then I can go buy hardware overtime.' It was all about access. How do we make access to Nutnaix technology frictionless?

So what is Nutanix's new software-centric vision?

This decision to now go all software is basically the next step in that same direction around frictionless access. We announced Xi [Cloud Services] which is about, 'You can now control Nutanix with cloud services as well. You're not going to take sides between on-premise and off-premise, with owning and renting. So if you want to continue to own Nutanix, you can now download it from a website and install it on a server that we didn't ship to you, kick the tires on it, and then come back if you really want to consume this thing.' So it's about increasing the access to our technology in the most friction-free manner.

Does this software strategy expand your total addressable market (TAM)?

It absolutely expands our TAM. It takes a lot of these analyst forecast that say, 'Oh [hyper-converged] is actually a $2 billion industry. Now it's a $4 billion industry. Now it's $8 billion' – it's up to companies like us who are category creators to expand the TAM. TAM is what the leading category creator business says it is.

How will Nutanix partners make this transition?

They'll either go and implement a private cloud for the end customer, or they can be managed services providers where they take our software, buy the hardware, take some risk along the way, but be that cloud provider. When they go and take the software and implement the private cloud to the customer, they are now using the professional services to put together a solution rather than just resell boxes.

The other thing is it is a recurring business because if they go and sell software upfront, customers will want to consume that software, but they want to buy hardware over time. Every time they want to go and consume that software, they will be a level of professional services involved and that is where the channel keeps coming back.

There's been many hyper-converged acquisitions in 2017. Will Nutanix will remain independent?

A lot of this it is the DNA of a company. What does independence really mean? It means staying power to go and optimize for the long-time as opposed to just optimizing for the short term. Staying power is based on long-term greed. So, do you have long-term greed or short-term greed? It's tied to two other things: ambition, which fuels long-term greed; and attention to detail, which is, 'Can you do this without burning too much cash? And can you do this with an awesome customer experience where customers love you and nothing else matters?'

So if we were to have some long-term greed, which is fueled by the ambition of the company – and the ambition has to tie back to product strategy, the adjacency of our market and the fact that we continue to expand the total addressable market – that is long-term greed. Tie that with attention to detail, I think you have a recipe for staying power. That's all we look at.

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/virtualization/300096761/nutanix-ceo-on-ciscos-hardware-problem-dells-dual-hyper-converged-strategy-and-why-he-doesnt-view-hpe-simplivity-as-a-competitor.htm

Galileo Performance Explorer Releases New Dell EMC Agent, VNX for Hybrid Flash Storage, to Support Critical IT Insights

Now, users of #DellEMC #VNX Series #HybridFlash Storage can glean critical insights about the condition and performance of their essential storage platforms. MALVERN, PA. (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 27, 2017 #GalileoPerformanceExplorer, the industry's leading integrated IT Performance Management ( #IPM ) suite created by The ATS Group, recently released a new agent to support insight into @DellEMC storage environments. Now, users of Dell EMC VNX Series Hybrid Flash Storage can glean critical insights about the condition and performance of their essential storage platforms. #Galileo 's VNX agent represent the second Dell EMC release for the IPM suite. Galileo announced support for Dell EMC #VMAX Storage earlier this fall, and users will also be able to leverage Galileo within Unity All-Flash and XtremIO All-Flash Array environments when those agents are released in 4th quarter 2017 and 1st quarter 2018. Galileo Performance Explorer enables users to easily access intelligently summarized IT data from dynamic dashboards, providing IT administrators and stakeholders with the information they need to make the best use of their available resources while supporting the most optimal user experience. With the release of this new agent for VNX storage environments, users can take a deep dive into analytics pertaining to the performance, capacity and overall state of their Dell EMC solutions. Galileo also provides predictive analytical graphs, which help pinpoint critical system problems, including those with the potential to cause bottlenecks, slowdowns and outages. In this way, pressing performance issues within VNX Hybrid Storage environments can be identified and addressed before they impact availability and usability. Galileo's uniquely innovative dashboards can also be customized according to the specific environment details users need. This quick-glance availability coupled with the ability to set custom parameters for monitoring notifications and performance alerts enables IT admins to have the most visibility and control over their storage systems. "Enterprises rely on their Dell EMC storage solutions and must ensure that they can access the insights they need in an easily digestible and valuable way," said Tim Conley, Principal of Galileo Performance Explorer and The ATS Group. "Galileo's advanced IT performance management suite provides the ideal solution, and with data relating to each storage environment's cache, volume, storage pool, replication group and more, IT stakeholders can make the best decisions regarding their critical infrastructure." Supporting the ability to take a proactive stance against performance issues, Galileo comprehensively monitors every component of Dell EMC VNX, offering essential data on volumes, operational status, physical disk and SSDs, FC ports and more. This deep analysis combined with automatic alert capabilities means IT admins will always be able to keep their Dell EMC storage environments in top working order. In addition to leading Dell EMC storage environments, Galileo Performance Explorer provides deep, vendor-agnostic servers, storage, database, SAN and cloud platforms as well, supporting the most complete picture of infrastructure health. "Galileo has partnered with industry experts and customers to establish an all-encompassing IT Performance Management suite, and our release of the Dell EMC VNX Flash Storage agent is a continuation of our commitment to bring the most comprehensive and valuable IT environment insights possible," Conley said. To find out more about Galileo Performance Explorer, the new Dell EMC VNX monitoring tools and other available technology agents, contact us for a free 30-day trial today.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/11/prweb14877214.htm

Software-Defined Storage Offers Agencies Flexibility, Security and Savings

State and local governments face relentless pressure to store and manage a rapidly increasing amount of digital information, fueled by the push to digitize decades of paper records, new encryption mandates, closed-circuit video, data analytics and more. With their data approaching petabyte proportions, IT departments now look beyond hardware solutions, often to technologies loosely categorized as software-defined storage (SDS). Some SDS products are key components of software-defined infrastructure solutions that offer converged compute and storage services (hyperconvergence), while others use software to pool and manage existing storage resources, says Julia Palmer, research director with Gartner. As part of the trend to deliver infrastructure resources as services, all SDS products help to increase flexibility and reduce the management burden on IT departments. “With the pressure on growing data volumes, we have no choice but to improve agility and break down silos in storage components and in the infrastructure as a whole,” Palmer says. “Software is the only way that’s going to be achieved, which is why we’re seeing more and more use of various SDS strategies.” Mohave County Moves Beyond Migration Efficiency Mohave County, in northwest Arizona, simplified the management and administration of its storage area network (SAN) hardware environment four years ago by implementing SDS with the DataCore SANsymphony-V storage ­services platform. The initial driver of the county’s SANsymphony deployment was to reduce the downtime involved in migrating data from one physical storage appliance to another, says Nathan McDaniel, the county’s IT director. “We needed DataCore because hardware storage solutions don’t play well together,” McDaniel says. “Once you choose a hardware platform, you’re essentially locked into that environment. But with SANsymphony in front acting as the controller of your physical storage, there is almost no migration downtime, and we can use any hardware we want.” Regardless of the hardware, McDaniel says, SANsymphony-V provides central management along with features that include snapshots and backups, thin provisioning, continuous data protection, auto-tiering, deduplication and compression, analysis and reporting, as well as integration with cloud storage solutions. “We save a lot in hardware costs because we now buy very simplistic physical storage — essentially just RAID — and DataCore does the rest,” he says. Support and maintenance costs for SANsymphony are low, yielding more savings for the county, he adds. The success of the SDS deployment pushed Mohave County toward a highly virtualized data center, as the county has adopted VMware for most of its other services and the IT team eyes the possibility of a hyperconverged infrastructure, McDaniel explains. “Our experience with DataCore has been amazing, and we’ve gone on to build a highly advanced data center,” he says. Santa Clara County Taps Dell to Deal with a Data Tsunami Typically, data storage needs in Santa Clara County, Calif., increase 15 to 20 percent annually, says Ljubisa Matavulj, the county’s enterprise infrastructure manager. Beyond initiatives to go paperless, other efforts — for example, new encryption mandates, the county’s plunge into data analytics, and a stepped-up disaster recovery program — add to the data tidal wave. To meet the challenge, the county deploys #VMware and its #DellEMC storage hardware.

“We have a storage profile, and when we generate data, VMware uses that profile to assign the data based on how we will use it,” says Matavulj. “If we need capacity, VMware will send the data to one store; if we need performance, the software will sent it to another.”

Santa Clara County’s #VMware platform meshes with storage hardware arrays through #EMC Virtual Storage Integrator. VMware provides unified, policy-based management for storage provisioning. Together with EMC #VNX and #XtremIO fully automated storage tiering, deduplication and compression capabilities, it makes storage more efficient and easier to manage, Matavulj says. The county hasn’t adopted an ­additional virtualization layer largely because it has standardized on EMC hardware, eliminating many of the integration issues found in more heterogeneous environments, he says.

“We studied it and found that virtualization’s costs exceed its benefits for our environment,” Matavulj says.

Performance is the most pressing storage issue, increasing the need for software-based solutions to automate functions and make them more agile and efficient, Matavulj adds.

Demand for storage capacity is not abating, however, as programs such as video surveillance and body-worn cameras for law enforcement create new data streams. The cloud can provide scalability, especially for static and archival data, but that option will require a major investment in the county’s networks and in SDS with auto-tiering and cloud integration, Matavulj says.

“You can’t just magically move to the cloud,” he says. “You need the ­bandwidth to move lots of data and the ­software to automate the process.”

With its existing SAN hardware reaching the end of its life, officials in Mecklenburg County, N.C., plan to escape from their reliance on dedicated storage hardware altogether, Technical Services Director Clifford Dupuy says.

Mecklenburg County Finds Hope in Hyperconvergence

“We want to be out of mechanical drive storage and into a hyperconverged ­infrastructure that includes storage,” Dupuy says.

Mecklenburg County will deploy #DellEMC ’s #VxRail #hyperconverged appliance, which combines compute, networking and virtualization resources along with #VMware #vSAN storage software. The county already uses #Microsoft #Azure’s #StorSimple 8000, a policy-based tiered solution that sends archival or infrequently used data to the Azure cloud.

The county’s initial investment in VxRail roughly equals the annual support and maintenance fees for the aging SAN, and its maintenance costs represent a fraction of that incurred by the old storage environment, Dupuy says. Yet, the promise of increased agility and security for storage resources impresses county teams at least as much as the cost savings.

“It’s a win for us in IT and a fiscal win for the county’s citizens,” Dupuy says. “They’re going to save money, and their data is going to be more secure in a system that’s more robust and dynamic.”

https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2017/07/software-defined-storage-offers-agencies-flexibility-security-and-savings

Dell EMC's Pure-crushing benchmarks are flawed, says, er, Pure

We've seen selected benchmarks that show #Dell #EMC #Unity arrays giving #Pure a hard time – and, unsurprisingly, Pure says the tests are "obviously flawed." The Unity arrays are reengineered #VNX arrays that were introduced in May. All-flash versions were used in the two benchmarks below. An obvious caveat is that these are selective benchmark results and we don't know if we have seen the whole set of results. What we have seen indicates that the Unity array can outperform Pure Storage Flash Arrays. The benchmarking software followed, we're told, IDC and SNIA testing recommendations for all-flash arrays. It involved varying percentages of reads and writes, different block sizes, and 100 per cent random workloads. Dell EMC believes this represents a typical real-world use case, whereas comparing millions of 4K 100 per cent read sequential IOPS does not.

Here are the results we have seen:

WorkloadPure //m50Unity 600FUnity Advantage
16K IOPS (80% Read)33,46058,8071.8X
256K BW MBps (@3ms)6742,3963.6X
Steady-state IOPS42,000116,0002.8X
Steady-state latency (ms)13.64.43X
The tested configurations were:

Unity 600F
2 active-active controllers
4 x 16Gbit/s FC ports
RAID5 (8 + 1)
16 LUNS, 32 or 16 threads
19 SSDs
FlashArray //m50
2 controller (active-passive backend)
4 x 16Gbit/s FC ports
RAID-3D
16 LUNs, 32 or 16 threads/LUN
40 SSDs (estimated)
We saw a Unity vs FlashArray //m70 benchmark result as well:

WorkloadPure //m70Unity 600FUnity Advantage
8K IOPS (80% Read)31,448163,7415X
256K BW MBps540 (@c5ms)3,450 (@c5ms)7X
Steady-state IOPS12,00086,0007X
Steady-state latency (ms)645.911X
Here are the tested configurations:

Unity 600F
2 active-active controllers
12 x 16Gbit/s FC ports
RAID-6 (10+2, 10+2, 10+2, 6+2)
64 LUNS, 8 threads/LUN
47 SSDs (44 + 3 spares)
FlashArray //m70
2 controllers (active-passive backend)
8 x 16Gbit/s FC ports
RAID-3D
16 threads/LUN
40 SSDs (estimated)
Pure's Matt Kixmoeller, VP of products, said: "Pure always encourages customers to perform real [proof-of-concept tests] with their application data, as synthetic testing has proven [over] time to be a poor indicator of the comparative performance of any AFA. In this case, the alleged test results are so obviously flawed that they serve to discredit themselves. For example, the tests seem to indicate that Pure's //m50 delivers higher bandwidth than the higher-end //m70 (which is an impossibility)."

Kixmoeller continued, "When doing any head-to-head testing, it is important to understand a myriad of configuration questions, such as whether or not compression and deduplication were enabled, whether encryption was enabled, how full the array was, whether data services like snapshots or replication were enabled, and whether the test data set has similar data reduction and locality characteristics to the actual planned workload.

"Pure's products are designed to deliver the highest levels of consistent performance, even with all data services engaged. We encourage customers to perform their own objective [proof-of-concept] comparisons, ideally with their own application data, and we can further enable customers to implement best practices for an all-flash environment, rather than bring along disk environment baggage."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/23/dell_emcs_unity_benchmarks/

Partners: Dell's Move To Allow Multiple Registrations For Competing Dell And EMC Products Is 'Fair'

#DellTechnologies is trying to keep its sales teams and channel partners calm by honoring multiple registrations for competing products until a unified channel program is launched Feb. 1, according to solution providers briefed on the effort. The focus is on what one large #Dell and #EMC solution provider executive called “hot spot” product lines where Dell and EMC overlap and compete. For example, if a Dell partner is registered to sell Dell Compellent storage to a customer and an EMC partner is registered to sell EMC #VNX storage to the same customer, both registrations will be honored and the partners will have to compete for the sale. When the Dell and EMC channel programs are fully integrated Feb. 1, the Dell partner and the EMC partner will automatically be registered on each other’s competing solution, the solution provider executive said.

Dell Technologies is trying to keep its sales teams and channel partners calm by honoring multiple registrations for competing products until a unified channel program is launched Feb. 1, according to solution providers briefed on the effort.

The focus is on what one large Dell and EMC solution provider executive called “hot spot” product lines where Dell and EMC overlap and compete. For example, if a Dell partner is registered to sell Dell Compellent storage to a customer and an EMC partner is registered to sell EMC VNX storage to the same customer, both registrations will be honored and the partners will have to compete for the sale.

When the Dell and EMC channel programs are fully integrated Feb. 1, the Dell partner and the EMC partner will automatically be registered on each other’s competing solution, the solution provider executive said.

“No one can end-run your #Compellent with [EMC] #Unity or #VNX,” he said. “That’s very thoughtful, and I give them a lot of credit. They’ve thought this through, and I think it’s fair. They’re trying to honor the account base.”

A top executive at an East Coast Dell solution provider said the move is an effort to keep the peace while the companies’ programs are integrated.

“There’s not one registration system, and it’s impossible for them to devise a system by which they can check every registration against every other registration across each company,” the solution provider executive said. “Trying to get the registration systems to work together is hard to do, and I can accept it as part of the acquisition. The only way to be fair is to do both. Otherwise you have to pick a favorite.”

Dell executives have not addressed specific channel program changes, but said in an interview with CRN Wednesday that changes were imminent. Dell COO and President of Enterprise Solutions Marius Haas said the company is trying to create a channel program that is predictable and that has “program elements that partners can get excited about both on the front end and back end. These are all the elements we’re putting in place. [Upcoming changes] are absolutely positive, and partners will absolutely see that their voice is being heard.”

Almost a year in the works, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell closed its acquisition of data storage giant EMC – along with virtualization powerhouse VMware – Wednesday, creating Dell Technologies, a more than $70 billion global IT conglomerate with a portfolio that stretches from budget PCs to high-end data center infrastructure and cloud services.

The companies’ channel programs will be run in parallel until Feb. 1, when Dell’s fiscal year begins. By then, the two programs will be integrated into a single Dell Technologies program led by new Global Channel Chief John Byrne.

As soon as the deal was closed, though, Dell began notifying channel partners about early program changes designed to foster loyalty and instill confidence among partners as the integration begins in earnest. Dell will bring EMC partners into the Dell program at their current EMC level, and the company will also use a partner-led sales model in accounts where solution providers have built successful relationships.

http://m.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300082003/partners-dells-move-to-allow-multiple-registrations-for-competing-dell-and-emc-products-is-fair.htm

Veeam kicks off 2016 with V9 GA

#Veeam Software has started off the year by making Veeam Availability Suite 9 generally available to customers. The software has more than 250 features, according to Veeam.

While the data protection application is only going GA now, Veeam pre-announced features throughout the past eight months.

“The software has been a year in the making,” said Doug Hazelman, vice president of product strategy at Veeam. “The focus has not only been on adding scalability but enterprise features that the mid-market and enterprise segments are looking for. So version 9 focuses on them.”

One of the main enhancements include integration with #EMC #VNX and #VNXe hybrid storage. Veeam announced this in May 2015. Enterprises will able to use Veeam Backup from storage snapshots to create backups from EMC VNX or VNXe storage snapshots in two minutes or less via Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots without the need for intermediate steps.

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/blog/Storage-Soup/Veeam-kicks-off-2016-with-V9-GA

EMC Surveillance Review (VNX-VSS100)

Cameras seem to be everywhere now and the number is only increasing. The omnipresent surveillance can be seen as either a blessing or a curse depending on one’s perspective, but it does provide information that can lead to finding answers to crimes, accidents, and mechanical failures. As camera technology is improving, with aspects such as better resolution, more and more data is being consumed. Surveillance data needs to be stored within a given time frame and with certain retention policies while at the same time video has to be accessed clearly and reliably when a request is sent. EMC sees these and coming concerns and is beefing up its own line of surveillance offerings, and products that serve the surveillance requirements or municipalities, events and large enterprises with complex needs and heavy compliance concerns. 

http://www.storagereview.com/emc_surveillance_review_vnxvss100

EMC adds cloud hooks to storage system lineup The storage giant said its high-end EMC VMAX and VNX systems will connect to public and private clouds.

#EMC said Tuesday that it will connect more of its storage systems to public and private clouds via pre-built integrations.

The storage giant said its high-end EMC #VMAX and #VNX systems will connect to public and private clouds. The company also expanded its data protection tools via its Spanning unit and cloud connections.

EMC's move comes a week after the company outlined its #CloudPools effort, which connects its OneFS operating system to #Microsoft #Azure, #AmazonWebServices and #Virtustream.

In a nutshell, EMC's latest move extends the CloudPools approach to its entire lineup.

Among the key points:

EMC's VMAX and VNX storage platforms will be able to tier data to public and private clouds automatically. EMC will support #VMware #vCloudAir, Azure, AWS and #Google Cloud Platform. VMAX can also be tied to EMC #CloudArray and SANs.
#CloudBoost 2.0 will take EMC's data protection tools such as Data Protection Suite and #DataDomain and tie them to cloud storage services for long-term archiving.
Spanning by EMC includes European deployment regions and backup for Salesforce and other software as a service data restoration.
EMC rolled out a new version of its NetWorker data protection software that automates policies where data resides. For instance, policies can move data from a local tier to the cloud after a certain amount of time.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/emc-adds-cloud-hooks-to-storage-system-lineup/

We SC what you did there, Mikey: Dell emits top-end array, hyper-converged boxes

#Dell has launched a flagship #SC9000 #Compellent array plus a more powerful #XC #hyperconverged system. It comes just days after @MichaelDell launched a bid to buy #EMC, which involves overlapping #VNX array and #ScaleIO hyper-converged products.

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/20/dell_top_end_array_hyperconverged_appliances/