EMC's latest VCE nodes aim to make clouds easy

The VxRack System 1000 with Neutrino nodes can run any workload on any node in the rack, and on any of several cloud software stacks. If OpenStack is best for one job, Hadoop is best for another, and VMware Photon is ideal for a third application, each can run on the appropriate stack. As long as there’s capacity somewhere in the rack, it doesn’t matter where each is hosted.

“It allows any of the hardware in the nodes to be provisioned to any software stack,” said Jeremy Burton, EMC’s president of products and marketing. This will help enterprises and service providers deliver IaaS (infrastructure as a service) to their users and customers.

Each node includes computing, networking and storage hardware, plus the Neutrino software. It’s the third type of node introduced for the VxRack cloud chassis.

The rack of Neutrino nodes can also maintain the various software stacks by itself, applying patches and updates without the user’s help, Burton said. EMC estimates a Neutrino rack will take one day to get up and running. Customers will be able to order VxRacks with Neutrino Nodes and OpenStack support beginning in the third quarter. Photon and Hadoop support will come next year. The VxRack System 1000 starts at US$300,000.

Also on Tuesday, EMC announced Native Hybrid Cloud, a turnkey developer system that includes the CloudFoundry developer platform on top of the VxRack System 1000. It’s designed as a quick-to-deploy system on which developers can build, deploy and scale applications. It will be available in the third quarter.

Enterprises are flocking to systems that come preconfigured with computing, storage and networking because they don’t want to be responsible for systems integration, Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Colm Keegan said. An ESG survey of more than 300 IT decision-makers showed that 32 percent had already implemented converged systems and 56 percent were planning to do so.

Native Hybrid Cloud takes VCE’s converged technology one step further by adding development tools on top of it. “You no longer have an erector set,” Keegan said.

The battle between complexity and simplicity is one theme of this week’s annual EMC World user conference in Las Vegas, where the VxRack Neutrino is being announced on Tuesday. Michael Dell, CEO of the company that’s preparing to take over EMC, said on Monday that bringing Dell and EMC products under one roof will give customers a one-stop shop for next-generation technologies. “You want technology made easier,” he told the audience.

On Monday, EMC announced Virtustream Cloud, a service designed for seamless cloud backup and data tiering from on-premises storage systems.