EMC World 2011: Atmos and Greenplum product families refreshed

LAS VEGAS: EMC has announced the latest version of its cloud storage platform, and the availability of the Hadoop-based Greenplum database software.

EMC Atmos 2.0 is five times more powerful and 65 per cent more efficient than its predecessor, the firm said, and is designed to manage information for content-rich, high-scale infrastructures and cloud service provider environments.

Key features include the ability to store object segments, rather than entire objects, across distributed storage environments, and to provide Windows users with secure access to the cloud using Atmos GeoDrive software.

Integration has also been enhanced, and the EMC Atmos Software Development Kit now supports Apple iOS and Centera applications. Interoperability for Amazon S3 customers is to be included as well, EMC added.

After a slow start Atmos is starting to become a really interesting product, mostly as the use-cases start to firm up and interest in object-based storage continues to build, explained Simon Robinson, research director of storage at The 451 Group.

"The performance upgrades are an important addition, but it's also noteworthy that EMC is now opening Atmos up to Amazon Web Services. S3 has simply become too big to ignore, and EMC has made the wise choice to join the party," he told V3.co.uk.

Atmos 2.0 and GeoDrive will be available in the second quarter of 2011.

Rounding off a busy first day, EMC also introduced its high-performance Greenplum product range, affirming its support for the Apache Hadoop platform.

The Greenplum HD Data Computing Appliance will integrate Hadoop with the Greenplum database, allowing customers to carry out large-scale data processing and analytics.

The launch of the Greenplum product family aims to provide real-time data interaction and greater reliability, and to make Hadoop much easier to deploy and use, the firm said.

EMC Greenplum HD will be available in Community and Enterprise editions. The  Community edition will be 100 per cent open source certified, supporting HDFS, MapReduce, Zookeeper, Hive and HBase platforms.

The Enterprise version, meanwhile, will be 100 per cent interface-compatible with the Apache Hadoop stack.

This compatibility is set to allow large organisations to carry out data management as well as load and access data using a native network file system interface, the firm said.

The Greenplum Community, Enterprise edition and the EMC Greenplum HD Data Computing Appliance are expected to be available in the third quarter of 2011. Pricing is yet to be confirmed.