The kid is not VSAN: EMC buffs up ScaleIO for high-end types

EMC has buffed up its ScaleIO virtual SAN software.

Hopkinton positions ScaleIO as virtual SAN software for higher-end data centres than subsidiary VMware’s VSAN virtual SAN software, and also for customers using Hyper-V server virtualisation, which VSAN does not support. ScaleIO scales out to more nodes than VSAN, we’re told.

ScaleIO v2.0 supports Ubuntu (Ubuntu OS 14.04 LTS) and CoreOS (hence Docker and containers) and integrates better with OpenStack (Cinder driver) , supporting the Liberty release, and contributing to it. VMware Photon support is coming.

Security additions include Active Directory and LDAP integration, and IPv6 address support. Data-at-rest encryption is coming later this quarter. Data in-flight checksumming has been added to improve resistance against corruption.

EMC has added expanded support options and read flash cache capabilities plus a 5-node MDM (MetaData Management ) cluster. Chad Sakac, EMC’s president for converged systems, tells us this means: “(3 repositories + 2 tiebreakers), which enables continued operation after multiple MDM node failures.”

ScaleIO V2.0 has “Mirantis Fuel plugins (Ubuntu JUJU charms coming very soon) and rich and mature vCenter plugins”.

He says there is increased redundancy as “ScaleIO 2.0 will maintain cluster performance when doing routine maintenance (via the introduction of a formal maintenance mode)”.

V2 ScaleIO software is now generally available, either as software-only - here - or as VxRack Node and VxRack System 1000 FLEX HW+SW offerings. There is a non-disruptive upgrade process between 1.3x and 2.x versions of ScaleIO to v2.0. CoreOS support is only available via a Request for Product Qualification (RPQ).

Check out the datasheet here (PDF) and read Virtual Geek aka Chad Sakac's blog here. ®