Dubbed Virtual Matrix Architecture, the technology integrates industry-standard components with EMC Symmetrix capabilities to enable massive scale to the tune of hundreds of thousands of terabytes of storage to support hundreds of thousands of virtual machines. The Symmetrix V-Max system is the first storage system based on Virtual Matrix. It uses quad-core Intel Xeon processors.

"The shift from physical to virtual computing is being driven by efficiency gains too compelling to ignore," said EMC Chairman, President and CEO Joe Tucci. "Virtualization's ability to maximize resources and automate complex and repetitive manual tasks is overtaking the server world and is now happening in the storage world."

The Missing Ingredient

EMC said its Virtual Matrix Architecture allows Symmetrix V-Max engines to interconnect and share resources. The Symmetrix V-Max system scales to 1,024GB of global memory, with twice as many front-end and back-end connections compared to EMC's Symmetrix DMX-4 systems. The ability to interconnect and share resources to linearly scale out is a key customer requirement as virtual machines and applications are dynamically added and shifted, EMC said.

The Symmetrix V-Max system provides more than three times the performance, twice the connectivity, and three times more usable capacity than Symmetrix DMX-4 systems and uses significantly less power per terabyte.

"Server virtualization has caught fire, and there is no turning back. To realize the ultimate benefit, however, the whole infrastructure stack has to be virtualized and integrated," said Steve Duplessie, a senior analyst for The Enterprise Strategy Group. "EMC's new Virtual Matrix Architecture provides all the missing ingredients required for the virtual data center at the high-end storage layer -- infinite effective scale in all dimensions, a single system image to manage and dynamic self-optimization ."

The Third Evolution of Storage (continued...)

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