Project Orion: Lightweight RESTful interface for EMC Storage

EMC’s greatest strength is an incredible breadth of portfolio and a “string of pearls” acquisition model. We’re incredibly diverse as a company.

That technology diversity is also true in the more “classic” parts of EMC – Storage and Backup. It’s a strength. After all – when a customer needs the storage equivalent of a tactical nuke – they want/need something designed for purpose, like a VMAX or Isilon. When they need a swiss-army knife, they want need a general purpose platform – like VNX. When they need backup – the insane growth in purpose-built backup appliances like Data Domain and Avamar speaks to customer demand.

BUT – like all strengths – this is also a weakness. It introduces complexity in building tools, in integrating with other partners (like Microsoft, SAP, VMware) – where we need to do it several times, and the other folks need to do it once or twice. It makes scripting and automation harder to maintain.

Every platform has a different API model. When it comes to APIs, SMI-S works on some platforms, but not all (and is remains block centric). We have a rich ECIM API on the newer VNX/VNXe platforms – but what do we do as the portfolio continues to expand like when we develop or acquire the next Isilon?

There is a better way, a way to have your cake (great constant diversity) and eat it (API simplicity) too... one of the first steps is to make the most fundamental APIs to the storage platforms move to a simple, RESTful interface. Something fast, simple and lightweight. Something that you could quickly build a “southbound platform plugin” and a “northbound use case plugin” The prototype for this was codenamed “Project Orion”.

We’ve hit a milestone where formal work is now going on on this, and we thought it would be cool to air out the idea – get feedback. While this is absolutely pre-alpha (really, just prototype) code – and there’s nothing to say that if you use it, it isn’t throwaway work, I pushed hard – as I think it’s cool to see what the EMC Solution Group and Infromation Management Group is busy working away on.

Remember, if you ask for support, I’m just going to start laughing     The prototype for Orion included: northbound adapters for vCenter Orchestrator and for Microsoft System Center/Opalis.

Part of the project was to see – how hard would it be to develop against it? After all – if it’s not fast, simple and easy – it doesn’t help.  So, as a proof point – Larry Grant (vSpecialist in NY/NJ, Oracle guru –and author of the great http://www.drvcloud.com/myblog/ blog was the developer of the southbound Isilon and VPLEX modules. Likewise, later in the project (umm, last week) the always incredible Clint created a Powershell northbound adapter – meaning, boom – now a single powershell API for the whole of EMC – that’s the power of the idea of Orion. We’re working on a prototype SAP Landscape Virtualization Management module as we speak.

You can see a video demonstration of this in action here:

Feel free to download and play with Project Orion. Remember: IT IS A PROTOTYPE AND NOT SUPPORTED IN ANY WAY. We've posted it here so people can download, but also comment, and play.

Would LOVE your feedback. Good idea? Bad idea? Implementation - what should we do differently?

Please comment!

You can download the bits (in the form of a vApp) and API doc here:

• ftp://Bloglink:vgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/system.vmdkvgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/system.vmdk
• ftp://Bloglink:vgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/Orion1_OVF10.ovfvgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/Orion1_OVF10.ovf
• ftp://Bloglink:vgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/Orion1_OVF10.mfvgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/Orion1_OVF10.mf
• ftp://Bloglink:vgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/Orion1_OVF09.ovfvgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/Orion1_OVF09.ovf
• ftp://Bloglink:vgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/Orion1_OVF09.mfvgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/Orion1_OVF09.mf
• ftp://Bloglink:vgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/OrionReadMe_(2).docvgeek1blog@vspecialist.emc.com/vApps/Orion/OrionReadMe_(2).doc