Tintri  Inc. is rolling out a major update to the software powering its hybrid storage arrays that introduces new capabilities for fine-tuning operations in large virtual environments. One of the most notable additions is an optional extension that takes advantage of the latest development in the world of hypervisors.

That is of course containers, or more precisely, VMware Inc.’s proprietary answer to containers. The new version of its ubiquitous virtualization platform that debuted two months ago provides the ability to clone instances into lightweight copies that can launch in under a second and use only a fraction of the space needed for full-sized images, which allows the creation of hundreds at a time.

Tintri’s freshly unveiled SyncVM feature, the third addition to its budding arsenal of paid add-ons, takes advantage of that functionality to speed up the implementation of updates. The platform propagates changes made to a master virtual machine onto its copies using a patent-pending technology that promises to reduce release times from days or hours to mere minutes.

That can provide a major productivity boost in the test environments where developers experiment with modifications to their organization’s applications before rolling them out to the live implementation that supports workers. The feature is potentially just as useful for updating virtual desktops delivered using VMware’s cloning feature, which in turns benefits administrators, who are also the target of the new quality-of-service controls that Tinitri is releasing in conjunction with SyncVM.

Limits on minimum and maximum storage IOPS can now be enforced for individual virtual machines through the company’s array operating system based on the requirements of the applications running inside. That makes it possible to prioritize workloads with more ease – and less advanced planning – than alternative platforms that only provide the ability to set IOPS thresholds for storage volumes, which typically serve multiple instances.

The augmented controls have also been implemented in the latest release of Tintri’s high-level management service, the third component of the new update. As a result, Tintri Global Center 2.0 enables operators to group virtual machines based on performance and other operational characteristics. That’s useful for applying bulk changes to large parts of an environment and, for providers, creating different service tiers.

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