Much to the relief of shareholders wary of the waning demand for its traditional disk arrays, EMC Corp. didn’t deliver any major surprises in its second quarter earnings report this morning. Sales climbed an expected two percent – or more than six when adjusted for the stronger dollar – year-over-year to a round $6 billion.

That top-line growth also held steady from the previous quarter despite noticeably less momentum at its biggest subsidiary, VMware Inc., which only added a humble four percent to its revenue in the period ended June 30 compared to three times that in the first part of the year. But that’s only slightly less than what analysts expected, a decline that management had a relatively easy time explaining away.

The virtualization powerhouse took a $75 million charge earlier this month to settle a price-rigging lawsuit over a federal software contract, which also represents the bulk of the gap between EMC’s total earnings and the average market forecast for its own quarterly report. The double miss represents an inconvenient setback amid increased scrutiny from activist investors, but there’s an upside too.

The narrowing of the growth gap between VMware and EMC as a whole from last quarter provides something in the way of a retort to the claims that CEO Joe Tucci’s federation model is holding back the virtualization giant from realizing its full earnings potential. That alignment is made especially significant in view of the latter’s historically outsized contribution to the federation’s quarterly sales increases, although that’s only one of the factors in the fiscal equation.

Net profit is another. EMC cleared $487 million in the second quarter, which represents earnings of 43 cents per share excluding certain expenses, flat from last year and two cents above the average analyst expectation. However, the storage giant doesn’t expect the sailing to continue on its current steady course and cut its profit guidance for the full year to $1.87 per share, less than the $1.9 that the market had hoped for.

Meanwhile, its subsidiaries are cruising along at a comfortable speed. VMware’s profit came out two points ahead of the consensus estimate at 93 cents and Pivotal, the third and newest member of the federation, grew its humble revenue base an impressive 18 percent, with its subscription services topping 60 percent growth.

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