Tuesday, August 28, 2012

VMworld 2012: Introducing the New VMware vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1 for SMBs - VMware SMB Blog

Exciting times here at VMworld 2012 as we finally, can talk publicly about some of the product developments we have been working on in this past year. With today's announcement of VMware vSphere® 5.1 solutions to help small and midsize businesses (SMBs), we unveiled VMware vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1.

For those of you not familiar with VMware vSphere Storage Appliance, it enables you to transform the local storage within your servers into a shared storage resource that runs your virtualized applications. VSA allows you to achieve business continuity and eliminates any single point of failure within your IT environment. Let's dive into some of the new features behind today's announcement:

* Deployment on existing ESXi environments
If you have a virtualized environment already, you can still install VSA 5.1 on up to three VMware vSphere hosts. This enhancement allows our existing customers to take advantage of shared storage and enable application availability features, such as HA and vMotion, for the first time.

* Run vCenter within the VSA cluster
With VSA 1.0, an instance of vCenter Server was required to run outside the VSA cluster. Now, with this enhancement, you can install a vCenter Server instance in a VM on a local datastore within one of your VSA nodes, and then migrate the vCenter Server to shared storage. This allows you to save on deploying that extra server to run vCenter Server.

* Support for additional disk drives and increase of storage capacity online
VSA 5.1 now allows you to add more hard disk drives, including JBOD expansion. For 3TB in a RAID 6 configuration (no hot spare), you can add up to 8 disks. For 2TB drives in a RAID 6 configuration, you can add up to 12 local disks (no hot spare) and up to 16 external disks (with hot spare). As you add more hard disk drives to your VSA cluster post-deployment, you can include the additional hard disk capacity provided by increasing your storage capacity online. Remember, VSA 5.1 supports RAID 5, 6, and 10.

* Centralized management of multiple VSA clusters from one vCenter Server (AKA ROBO Support)
With VSA 5.1, multiple VSA clusters can be managed by a single instance of vCenter Server residing on a different subnet. Now, every small environment can provide shared storage to enable application availability, from SMBs to enterprises with a distributed network of branch offices.

[http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/files/2012/08/8-VMware-vSphere-Storage-Appliance-ROBO-configuration.jpg]<http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/files/2012/08/8-VMware-vSphere-Storage-Appliance-ROBO-configuration.jpg>

VSA 5.1 supports centralized management of multiple VSA clusters through one instance of vCenter Server, allowing ROBO environments to take advantage of shared storage.

If you're looking to deploy in a ROBO environment, VSA 5.1 now offers three installation and upgrade methods:

* Offline install – Configure the VSA 5.1 cluster at the main datacenter, box these servers up, and ship to the remote offices where these clusters can be added back into the main datacenter's vCenter Server.

* Unattended remote install – Upgrade an existing VSA 1.0 cluster at a remote office through the main datacenter. The bits can be sent over the wire, requiring no intervention at the remote office.

* Attended remote install – Similar to the unattended remote install/upgrade process, this method uploads the OVFs from the remote office. An IT admin at the remote office plugs in a removable storage device (e.g., USB stick) which contains the OVF.

To learn more about the other new enhancements within VSA 5.1, click here<http://www.vmware.com/go/vsa>.





By Manoj Jayadevan

I am very pleased to officially announce<http://bit.ly/Rjzn5h> the new-and-improved VMware Go Pro, another step forward in our commitment to provide simple and cost-effective solutions for growing SMBs to adopt and extend virtualization, and to improve the protection, scalability and reliability of their IT infrastructure.

[http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/files/2012/08/Easy-Virtualization-Choice-B.jpg]<http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/files/2012/08/Easy-Virtualization-Choice-B.jpg>

VMware Go Pro<http://bit.ly/Rjzg9O> is a Cloud-based virtualization deployment and management solution hosted by VMware that makes it easier and faster to virtualize, and simpler to manage and optimize a growing infrastructure across virtual and physical machines and software. Cloud-based delivery ensures an "anytime anywhere" IT management solution since all that a user needs is an Internet connection and a web browser to manage and monitor his entire IT infrastructure. Now with an even more streamlined look and feel, IT admins can start managing their virtual infrastructure right away and easily migrate to other VMware tools like the versatile vSphere Client. The terminology, concepts, even icons are consistent – VMware Go Pro just makes it all simpler and easier to understand.

With VMware Go Pro, we are uniquely positioned to deliver exceptional value to our customers and partners by simplifying virtualization and IT for SMBs. The new release further helps our customers keep up with the growth of their virtualized infrastructure by enabling the deployment of VMware vCenter for centralized management.



Here are the top 3 benefits VMware Go Pro offers:

Simplified Virtualization for SMBs
The common barriers to virtualization are lack of expertise and initial upfront costs. VMware Go Pro is an affordable subscription based solution delivered over the cloud. Its step-by-step wizards guide novices and experienced virtualization administrators alike through deploying and managing virtualization. And the web-based interface allows virtual and physical infrastructure management with anytime, anywhere access. With this new release, users will now be able to deploy VMware vCenter via a web browser for centralized management of their virtualized infrastructure. Even IT generalists can get started with virtualization in 30 minutes or less.

Enhanced Uptime and Reliability
VMware Go Pro's unified IT management console has built-in monitoring capabilities with unique, one-click IT assessments that automatically identify performance, security and downtime risks and make tailored recommendations to address them. The new release of VMware Go Pro uses the addition of VMware vCenter to improve uptime and reliability even further by enabling round-the-clock monitoring of your virtual infrastructure's health. Now customers will know of any potential issues even when they are not logged-into Go Pro.

Comprehensive Infrastructure Protection
VMware Go Pro offers automated patch management across physical and virtual machines for both Microsoft and third-party applications to ensure that organizations are up-to-date with all of the latest software upgrades, thus mitigating the organization's vulnerability to the latest IT threats. An integrated Help Desk with built-in analytics also helps improve IT productivity and service, automatically prioritizing issues by level of severity. Go Pro also offers a rich asset management capability, which provides control over all software and hardware assets.



Looking forward in 2013, users will also be able to implement and test business continuity plans in minutes with cloud-based VM backup and disaster recovery.

I invite you take the VMware Go Pro for a test drive and discover for yourself the power of virtualization and the simplification of IT.

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/2012/08/newvsa_smb.html> |by VMware SMB on August 27, 2012

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Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/2012/08/newvsa_smb.html

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