Las Vegas: EMC has launched ViPR, a software-defined storage platform aimed at helping firms better manage virtualised storage.

The company said that the ViPR platform would allow firms to pool multiple hardware units and appliances into a single system which can be centrally controlled. In doing so, the company believes it can better enable firms to manage private clouds.

“What we are essentially doing is providing a layer of software that is going to allow you to manage our existing arrays, third-party arrays and, increasingly, commodity storage,” EMC executive vice president for product operations and marketing Jeremy Burton told attendees at the company’s annual EMC World conference.

The company said that ViPR would operate with two different ‘planes’ for storage management. The control plane will handle high-level management and automation, allowing administrators to perform basic management tasks.

Additionally, ViPR will provide customers with a second, lower-level management layer known as the data plane The company said that the plane would allow for interaction with individual blocks of data, giving a more granular control for administration and management of databases.

Burton said that as applications have changed their approach to handling and utilising object storage, a new system such as the data plane is needed to adapt.

“We think a lot of the new apps that are going to be developed are gong to be built in a different way,” he said.

“We need new controillers for these new content types.”

ViPR is currently undergoing closed tests with customers and is set for general availability in the second half of the year.

Central to the company’s philosophy with ViPR is a push for horizontal integration and the ability to combine multiple platforms from multiple vendors. Chief executive Joe Tucci said that EMC is looking to present its platforms as a counter to the vertical integration approach of rivals such as Oracle.

“Some companies say; use my applications, my operating system, my middleware, right down to the hardware. We are doing it very differently,” Tucci said.

“Yes, we re going to put those technologies together, but you can also piece-pick, you can partner in any place on the chain.”