Data company Dot Hill has imbued its AssuredSAN 3000 series devices with new levels of data protection, performance and security technology. VARs with customers leveraging VMware and are looking for a way to enhance an existing portfolio or customer environment may want to take notice of Dot Hill’s latest innovation.

If you’re already running vSphere 4.1 and 5, you’re good to go. Just pop over to your AssuredSAN 3000 appliance and run the free firmware update. VMware ESX servers then can take advantage of AssuredSAN 3000 through a simple (and also free) plug-in. Dot Hill is essentially giving its customers an added boost in functionality, expanding the capabilities of the AssuredSAN 3000 and broadening its use cases for VARs. It also an easy sell that’s simple to understand: AssuredSAN 3000 offloads the intensive virtualization storage I/O processes such as backup and data migration, allowing VMware servers to focus on virtualizing more important things.

More technically, the update equips AssuredSAN 3000 storage systems with VMware’s vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) and Site Recovery Manager (SRM), turning any VMware environment into a protected and secure data repository. VAAI on the AssuredSAN 3000 promises “accelerated provisioning of new virtual machines,” plus increased performance overall, thanks to vMotion technology that can increase data cloning and reduce CPU loads. SRM ostensibly takes VAAI and expands it into a more streamlined backup, recovery and restoration environment for VMware-based virtual machines that are “mission-critical.”

Want a closer look? Dot Hill plans on showcasing the technology at VMware Partner Exchange 2012 in Las Vegas from Feb. 13-17. Be sure to also check out Dot Hill’s recent move, offering a free year of technical support for all those who buy AssuredSAN technology.