EMC to target SMB sector with storage soln VNX

BANGALORE, INDIA: Storage solution company EMC on Wednesday announced the launch of a new solution for the the global Small and Medium Business (SMB) market.

Named VNXe, this platform converges CLARiiON and Celerra - two of EMC’s previous storage models - into a single modular hardware architecture.

The company claims that VNX has a simple and clean interface that looks more like a business/web application than a traditional IT management tool and expects to replace its rival company NetApp in the storage sector.

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VNX provides an internal ITaaS (Infrastructure Technology as a Service) solution for customers that will compete with the growing external cloud offerings. The product and GUI (Graphics User Interface) allows for customer deployment and self-service or direct linkage to the VARs (Value Added Re-sellers) who can install, repair and expand the system.

EMC hopes that it can take a major chunk from NetApp in the SMB sector, where NetApp is facing a slide in revenue due to its inability to meet market demand.

According to an IDC Research, the entry-level market for storage is both larger and has a higher growth rate than the mid-range or high-end market. EMC claims it was the overall external disk storage software market leader with a 26 per cent market share in the fourth quarter of 2010, beating NetApp which had a share of only nine per cent.

Going by EMC's version, VNXe can be installed in minutes and configured in seconds, as there are wizards for configuring, free of complicated storage languages. This is a compelling choice for the SMBs as they get twice the capacity at half the cost of most current competitive alternatives, claims EMC.

“We’re looking forward to helping customers take advantage of the many features of our unified solutions to more easily and more effectively manage their information,” said Rich Napolitano, president, Unified Storage Division at EMC Corporation, in a media interaction.

These technologies are part of a multi-billion-dollar investment in storage that positions it at the intersection of all the major trends that are driving massive information growth, including cloud computing and Big Data applications, claims the company.