Posting on behalf of:
Shanky Chandra Gowri, Product Marketing Manager for EqualLogic.
“What is EqualLogic Host Software and why should I care?” – A question that I have been asked by so many people, customers and colleagues included. If I got a dollar for every time I answered this question, I would be a millionaire by now…
My job as Product Marketing Manager for EqualLogic got more challenging when Dell brought in more awesomeness to the EqualLogic Host Software product portfolio with the announcement of:
Here are four reasons why you should use these EqualLogic Host Software products in your environments:
More and more organizations are virtualizing mission-critical applications but protecting these virtual servers and the applications is a challenge. Host Integration Tools, with features like Auto-Snapshot Manager and Storage Replication Adaptor for VMware Site Recovery Manager, provide comprehensive data protection that is tuned to your applications and environment for efficiency and reliability. These tools ensure clean and consistent copies of data for reliable and fast backup and disaster recovery.
HIT/Microsoft 4.0 further strengthens my Reason 1 with centralized data protection and more efficient management of multiple Microsoft hosts and virtual machines. The Enhanced Clustered Shared Volume (CSV) support is designed to streamline data protection for CSVs and improve capacity utilization. The new EqualLogic Storage Replication Adaptor for VMware SRM 5.0 supports automated failback from disaster and leverages EqualLogic SAN-based replication making failback rapid, reliable and affordable.
Traditionally storage management on SAN and data management on hosts have been two disparate tasks. Host Integration Tools enable integrated, simplified and automated end-to-end operations from hosts to the EqualLogic array. These tools help streamline data management on hosts thereby reducing administration overhead and improving space and time savings.
HIT/VMware 3.1 provides end-to-end EqualLogic storage visibility and enhanced datastore management capabilities within vSphere® UI through tight integration with VMware vSphere 5.0, vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) and vSphere Storage Dynamic Resource Scheduling (DRS).
The unique peer storage architecture of EqualLogic storage arrays automatically balances workloads by seamlessly spreading data across multiple active storage resources, and optimizing the available network connections, cache, controllers, and drives. Host Integration Tools, with the EqualLogic Multipath I/O feature, enable host platforms to intelligently leverage EqualLogic SAN architecture, storage and network usage for optimized performance for customer environments. EqualLogic SAN HQ helps improve performance and effective allocation of group resources by enabling centralized monitoring and analysis of multiple EqualLogic groups.
SAN HQ 2.2 enables multi-site support for consolidated view of EqualLogic groups distributed across data centers in different geographies. New features like live view, normalized view, RAID evaluator and Group diagnostics provide ongoing, realistic, real-time diagnostic information and enable you to optimize and tune your system for performance and efficiency.
Organizations that are implementing a SAN for the first time or want to migrate away from expensive, complex solutions will benefit from the Management features of Host Integration Tools. These tools enable easy configuration and management of EqualLogic arrays helping minimize time and training. Remote management capabilities further reduces time and complexity by helping customers configure and manage multiple EqualLogic arrays remotely.
HIT/Microsoft 4.0 introduces Enhanced PowerShell Tools for streamlined management of EqualLogic arrays, replicas and iSCSI connections.
While these new releases offer increased functionality to you, they continue to adhere to the EqualLogic values of Automation and Ease of Use. Now that you’ve got my reasons for why you should care about EqualLogic Host Software in your environments, have a dollar in hand for further questions .
You can find additional information and videos about the new Host Software releases in Dell TechCenter. You can follow me on twitter at @ShankyAtDell
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This Monday (8/22), Dell announced a ton of new offerings for EqualLogic and tools for VMware vSphere 5. You saw the social media press release , right?
In case you missed any of the links, here is what was announced:
EqualLogic
EqualLogic PS4100 Series
EqualLogic PS6100 Series
EqualLogic FS7500
EqualLogic software enhancements
SAN HQ 2.2
Host Integration Tools (HIT)) for Microsoft 4.0
VMware vSphere 5 tools
Dell EqualLogic Host Integration Tools for VMware 3.1
Dell Compellent Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5
Dell PowerVault Integration with VMware vSphere 5
Here are some links that will give you the nitty gritty information about the releases. If I've missed your post, please let me know!
Dell Bloggers
Sarah Cook PG Marketing Outbound Product Consultant for Storage and Ryan Steed, CoC Relationship Product Management give a great overview of the announcements (with tons of links)
Shanky Chandra Gowri, Product Marketing Manager for EqualLogic gives the scoop on the new EqualLogic software releases, and explains why you should care about them.
He also posted details about the software releases on the Dell Tech Center blog.
Of course the Dell Tech Center gurus have pulled together some amazing videos on this wiki
Marc Malotke, Enterprise Solutions Specialist, has the specs on the drives for the new arrays . He also linked to the new Visio stencils on VisioCafe .
Daniel Moges, Systems Engineer, gives info on how the new PS4100 and PS6100 series have been added to the Dell High Availability Cluster Solution stacks .
Zafar Mahmood, who works in Database Solutions for Dell, also has a post on the Dell Tech Center about NAS for database storage - the post has gives lots of info about the FS7500 and Dell Scalable File System (DFS) .
Community Bloggers:
Roger Lund
Jonathan Franconi
Matt Vogt
Videos