In the world of physics, everything is tied to the speed of light. In the world of business, everything is tied to the speed of data infrastructure. A business can only move as fast as its information. Day two of the EMC World 2016 conference opened with a keynote event that defined this truth and introduced a number of products and solutions to help modernize the data center to new levels of speed.

The first product announcement came from Fidelma Russo, SVP and GM of the VMAX Business Unit at EMC. She announced a new VMAX all-flash system that improves on the technology of EMC’s flash storage solutions. She called it a quantum leap for flash and EMC, mentioning they’re at a point where the overall system cost is less than spinning disk. Flash and tiering to the cloud, she said, would be the cornerstone of the modern data center.

Simplicity is key

Jeff Boudreau, SVP and GM for the Enterprise and Midrange Systems Division at EMC, then came to the stage to speak about the Unity Project. He described it as a new file system, operating environment and user interface to create a family of simplified and affordable storage. In particular, he pointed out the system ran HTML5, with no Java. He mentioned the system would reduce opex and capex costs.

To demonstrate Unity, Boudreau then ran a setup routine onstage using a single checklist-style menu.

Copy data management was the subject for Beth Phalen, SVP and GM of data protection and availability solutions at EMC. She said a business could create a huge number of copies of its data, and for good reasons, but then end up overwhelmed by managing those copies. The key was balancing the right number of copies with the right amount of data protection.

Phalen then announced a new product, Enterprise Copy Data Management, a system that gives a view of the data and copies held in systems across the world, if necessary. It also helps manage client and service levels.  

Big and small scaling solutions

Chad Sakac, president of VCE’s Converged Platform Division at EMC, followed that up with the concept of build versus buy. More people, he said, are choosing to buy their infrastructure as they need it than assemble their own. He asked, can EMC build something that’s aimed toward starting really small? This was VCE’s VxRail, a simple, start-small modular storage system with lots of field-replaceable parts. Then, he revealed the opposite, VxRack, a system designed to scale big.

Next up was Ray O’Farrell, CTO and chief development officer at VMware, Inc., who spoke about virtualization and the cloud. He said people don’t manage one cloud, but leverage multiple clouds, public and private. He then announced VMware’s vRealize suite that would create a management layer across this network of clouds. It’s a product, he said, that truly spans the clouds that a business are most likely to be leveraging.

The keynote then closed with a call to modernize, automate and transform IT operations.

Be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of EMC World 2016.  

Photo by SiliconANGLE