Infrastructure provider EMC (NYSE: EMC) announces its release of an update for its Unisphere management software. The company claims that the solution enables storage administrators to perform common tasks from drop-down menus, using far fewer clicks.

A Web-user views the global networking site called Xing in Stockholm, November 20, 2008.

The company, which is primarily for midrange and small businesses, is "dumbing down" the management of some of its storage systems. The company is said to release the solution due to its recognition that large enterprises with large IT staffs are not the the only businesses investing in new, more efficient virtualized systems, thereby continuing a trend that is moving towards simplification of storage and server administration.

The company even goes so far as claiming that even a trained employee with no formal training in IT can provision storage from a VMware (NYSE: VMW) vCenter Server in only two clicks.

Mark Sorenson, EMC's Senior Vice President at EMC Computer Systems said that this reflects a natural evolution within the industry. "Up until recently, there really haven't been the software tools and technologies that could exploit it [simplification of administrative tasks]... Fast, fully automated storage begins to exploit those, putting the information on the right device -- whether it's SATA for cost or flash for performance. FAST Cache takes advantage of flash devices to extend the size of caches," Sorenson said.

The company's Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) cache is geared towards performance optimization and enables applications to run about twice as fast as the normal rate. The software is fully automated and does not require administrator intervention.

Sorenson says that new software is continually being developed to harness new hardware advancements.

The company has also integrated its Unisphere solution with VMware's vCenter into a single application. The feature would centralize control for VMware administrators. In addition, the company's unified storage systems now work immediately out-of-the-box with VMware vSphere and VMware vStorage APIs.

Sorenson said that FCoE is also built into these midrange arrays for improved connectivity. EMC also touted its New Block Data Compression. The feature is meant to reduce storage capacity requirements by up to 50 percent.

International Business Times, The Global Business News Leader