EMC has made its ViPR controller product available for free through an open source licence in response to customer demand.
The software-defined storage product will become the first software solution belonging to EMC to become an open source project, dubbed Project CoprHD (pronounced Copperhead).
It will be made available on GitHub for community-driven development under the Mozilla Public License (MPL 2.0).
This includes all the storage automation and control functionality that separates the data and control planes for operation.
Among other firms supporting the initiative are SAP, Verizon and Intel.
Speaking at EMC World, the firm said it wants to encourage all storage vendors to contribute to Project CoprHD, "further expanding the ecosystem and embracing open and standard APIs".
With the project, "customers, partners, service providers and system integrators can develop new service catalogue offerings with automated workflows to meet their customers' specific needs", said EMC.
"Building a strong developer community is crucial to the future success of EMC's software-defined storage and storage automation and management products," the firms added in a statement.
Both Project CoprHD and ViPR Controller will share core features and functionality, but ViPR Controller customers will get support and services from EMC.
Meanwhile, any changes made to Project CoprHD by the community will get fed back into ViPR, if EMC likes them.
EMC also offered its ScaleIO software as a free download for non-production use, without any time or capacity restrictions. It said the move would allow customers to create full-fledged ScaleIO environments for free non-production use before upgrading to a paid production licence.
"For anyone left confused, today's announcements prove this is not your father's EMC," said Jeremy Burton, president of products and marketing at EMC.
"By offering access to Project CoprHD, the open source version of EMC ViPR Controller and free downloads of EMC ScaleIO two key enabling pieces of our software-defined storage portfolio EMC has turned a corner by delving more deeply into open, collaborative software development with our customers, partners, developers and competitors.
"This represents a massive shift in our strategy that we believe will help accelerate our customers' efforts to develop new application-centric business models."
-
Bigger salaries, more burnout: Is the CISO role in crisis?In-depth CISOs are more stressed than ever before – but why is this and what can be done?
-
Cheap cyber crime kits can be bought on the dark web for less than $25News Research from NordVPN shows phishing kits are now widely available on the dark web and via messaging apps like Telegram, and are often selling for less than $25.
-
TikTok to open first European data centre in IrelandNews The move could signify a desire to shift its operations away from the US as well as secure its position in the European market
-
MPs in a muddle over GDPR and storing voters' personal dataNews Labour MP Chris Bryant says his staff were told to delete constituents' data
-
Dell EMC PowerEdge R640 reviewReviews A versatile, low-profile Xeon Scalable rack server with a big heart
-
Trump resort will not be charged for breaching data lawsNews Presidential hopeful's Scottish golf course failed to register under the Data Protection Act for four years
-
Businesses must pay greater attention to third-party riskNews Roles and responsibilities must be agreed on now to avoid blindspots and recriminations
-
EMC reveals quest to modernise the datacentre at EMC World 2016News IT must get most out of existing investments while upgrading, says EMC
-
Banks urged to share data but warned over securityNews Experts voice concern over security of open API recommendations
-
EMC open sources more storage softwareNews RackHD project aims to make managing storage much easier
