EMC ViPR gets Hadoop big data analytics boost

Storage giant EMC has announced a raft of enhancements for its ViPR storage management platform, which it claims will cut big data processing times by up to 80 per cent.

The product, which was announced by EMC at its annual customer and partner conference last May and went on general release in September 2013, is a core component of the vendor's software-defined datacentre strategy.

It provides users with a self-service portal where they can view available storage resources, allowing them to provision the applications and services they need.

It also allows systems admins to pool resources from a variety of different storage arrays, including those made by rival vendors, and boasts support for standard APIs from the likes of Amazon Web Services, OpenStack and Atmos.

The vendor has now added to the product's functionality by enhancing its object storage capabilities through the inclusion of support for the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) in its ViPR 1.1 release.

This means IT managers can turn their existing storage infrastructure into a big data repository, allowing Hadoop analytics to be applied to any data that's under the control of ViPR.

Speaking to IT Pro, Chris Ratcliffe, vice president of marketing within EMC's advanced software division, said the inclusion of Hadoop support will have a huge impact on big data processing times.

This is because, rather than having to move their data somewhere else for processing, the HDFS enhancements allow the analysis to be carried out where the data already resides.

"For customers it's all about time to results with big data and this can reduce that by 70-to-80 per cent," he said.

Since ViPR made its debut, Ratcliffe said the product has been warmly received, and has even won over users that are new to EMC.

To ensure this momentum continues, the company has also confirmed the 1.0 version of the software will be available from today as a free download.

As well as the ViPR enhancements, the company has also overhauled its Storage Resource Management (SRM) product suite to make it easier for admins to manage multi-vendor storage environments.

In other EMC-related news, the vendor has confirmed that 1,000 jobs at the firm will be axed by the end of the current financial quarter.

The announcement follows the publication of EMC's latest financial results, which saw the firm post lower-than-expected revenue figures for the previous financial year.