Rainfinity FMA Virtual Edition

In case you missed this, Chad Sakac (VMware guru!) posted a blog post announcing the public release of the EMC Rainfinity File Management Appliance – Virtual Edition (FMA/VE).

Here's Chad's explanation about WHAT this is:

What is Rainfinity File Management Appliance?   It’s an appliance that can move files between filesystems transparently, enabling automated policy-driven tiering.  

For example, you can move files on a Celerra between Flash based tiers, FC based tiers, SATA based tiers, and in and out of deduped filesystems.    On the real product (not the current Virtual Edition – this is one difference between the virtual and physical versions…) you can also use it between Celerra and NetApp systems, and to and from NAS devices to Centera (gee – I wonder what could be the next cloudy tier? :-).

Why would you do it?   Most filesystems are mostly old stale data.  They consume all the storage costs as if they were actively used.   They are backed up every time a full filesystem backup is done.   For most customers – this can save a whackload of money, and make backups of any NAS environment work better.

Read the post for more technical explanations, diagrams, where to download it, and how-to videos. I bet it would be a great virtual machine to get if you are trying to come up to speed on these technologies. Make sure you also read his disclaimer:

THIS IS NOT SUPPORTED IN GENERAL, AND CERTAINLY NOT IN PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENTS.