EMC looks to move data around the world

EMC has unveiled a new system to easily move data from one data centre to another.

The VPLEX Local and VPLEX Metro - unveiled at the start of EMC's annual conference this week in Boston - both allow organisations to move huge amounts of data in what the company claims to be a seamless way, enabling better management for day-to-day tasks as well as enhanced protection from the likes of fires or natural disasters.

Pat Gelsinger, president and chief operating officer (COO) at EMC, said at the conference in Boston: "Storage became a large infrastructure that we [couldn't] move around [but] that is the essence of what VPLEX is doing. By moving large amounts of data across distances... now we have created a truly dynamic data centre."

The key is the distance. The VPLEX Local is only suitable for data moves within one data centre, whereas the Metro raises the bar to 100km, enabling transfers between data centres.

There are plans to extend this further with the VPLEX Geo, set for transfers across continents, and VPLEX Global, for worldwide transfers. Some patience will be necessary though, as EMC doesn't plan to start rolling these out until early 2011.

All the VPLEX offerings give support for both EMC and non-EMC storage, but currently only for block storage rather than on a file-by-file basis.

Each VPLEX engine is shipped as an appliance within a rack and has two processor boards using dual core Intel Xeon processors. The engines have caching capabilities to help speed up processes as well as scale out clustering, meaning businesses don't need to worry about data growth.

The system is already being used by AOL and Melbourne IT, which both sang the product's praises and claimed a total return on investment (ROI) of less than a year.

The first two products Local and Metro are available from today with list prices starting at $77,000 (51,000).