Got a new (old) storage, what next ?

Posted on November 9, 2014 by admin

I have seen many discussions from customers struggling to use the newly purchased second-hand storage systems. This post is to help them (if possible, in their case) who have a second-hand EMC mid-range storage system.

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What all components we have ?

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Through online purchases etc… you may not have received all the components necessary to power-up and operate the system. For powering up the clariion CX/AX system you need to have, a minimum of a Storage processor in enclosure (in xPE), vault drives in enclosure and cables. Without these components, you will not be able to assemble the system and make use of it. You should have additional storage processor and Standby power supplies for redundancy and DAEs (Disk Array Enclosures) , disks as per your configuration/requirement and FC cables for host connectivity.

You should ensure the vault drives are in place, the only chance to make the system boot. vault_drivesThe vault drives will be in the first five slots (first four in case of AX systems) for a CX series system and which will have a yellow warning sticker as in image.

For the systems with SPE carrying disks, you will not require a DAE as a necessary component. This enclosure itself should be having Storage Processors, vault disks and other disks.

The AX series systems will have drives numbered from 0-3 on the top row in the DAE (of 12 disks).

Note : If you are not having the above mentioned minimum components or if your vault drives are not in place, there is NO way to get the system – that is not in active EMC support  -in working condition. Re-imaging of the disks are only done by EMC field team and hence will not be possible for your system.

What all information do we have ?

The system was once in use, so should have some IP address and credentials already set. As already initialized, it is impossible to initialize the array now. If we have the IP address at least, we are good. If you are not knowing the credentials and IP address there is a link to the procedure given later in this post.

Cabling and power up

Power connections –  The storage processors should be connected to the Standby Power Supplies ( SPS ) if available. In case of dual SPSes, the inputs should be powered from separate sources. Disk Array Enclosures (DAE) also should be connected from different sources and the first DAE (which contains the vault drives) should be connected to the SPSes.

The backend cable connectivity is another and most important connectivity to be made. The BE0 ports on the SPs should be connected to the Primary port on the vault DAE. This will not be a minimum requirement for systems with SPE having vault disks as mentioned above. Additional DAEs can be connected in loop on the BE0 or additional BE ports.

Now once these are done, you can power ON the system by pressing the power buttons on the SPSes. Booting sequence will vary with system model. Once the boot LEDs are stable green, you will be able to connect to the system with the IP address and credentials.

Christopher Imes have explained the procedure to reset the IP address and login credentials in this ECN post if you are not knowing those for this – once configured –  system.

Once you have reset the IP and credentials you are good to configure the system for use.

Posted in CLARiiON, EMC | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

VMAX – deleting a thin pool, its easy…

Posted on November 9, 2014 by admin

Here we will discuss the procedure to delete the thin pool. Thin pools will be containing DATA devices and will have TDEVs (Thin devices) bound on it. Let’s go through the procedure in detail.

For deleting a thin pool,

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1. Ensure no thin devices (TDEVs) are bound to the pool.

2. All the TDATs should be in disabled state.

You can check the pool status by running the command,

symcfg -sid xxxx show -pool T_Pool_1 -thin -detail 

This will show the pool state and details including TDEVs bound and enabled TDATs. If there are any TDEVs bound to the pool, you  may either migrate the data to a different pool, or you can unbind the devices by running the command (if there are no data in it)

symconfigure -sid xxxx -cmd ” unbind AAAA:BBBB from pool T_Pool_1;” commit -v

*** NOTE : Unbinding the TDEVs will wipe out all data in it ***

where AAAA:BBBB are the TDEVs bound on the pool. This will unbind the devices from the pool, which usually takes some time depending on the device size.

Once this is done we can disable the TDATs from it. Use the below command for disabling the devices,

symconfigure -sid xxxx -cmd “disable dev AAAA:BBBB in pool T_Pool_1, type=thin;” commit -v 

Once disabling is done, the pool state becomes disabled, from enabled or rebalancing or whatever it was.

You may verify this by running the show -pool command.

Now we can remove the TDATs from pool before deleting the pool. The command will be,

symconfigure -sid xxxx -cmd “remove dev AAAA:BBBB from pool T_Pool_1, type=thin;” commit -v 

Now we are all set to delete the pool. Issuing the below command will do it for you.

symconfigure -sid xxxx -cmd “delete pool T_Pool_1, type=thin;” commit -v 

Deleted ?, you can verify it by running the list -pool or show -pool command.

symcfg -sid xxxx list -pool -thin -gb -detail

Yes, the pool T_Pool_1 is not there. So we are done..! You may refer to this post for expanding a thin pool.

Posted in EMC, Symmetrix, VMAX | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Hurry..!! 50% on all VMware exams for APAC users.

Posted on November 5, 2014 by admin

VMware certification at a discounted rate..? Yes, VMware is offering a 50% off on all their certification exams. But this offer is only available for the Asia-Pacific users, not a global promo code. Here are more in detail..

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All you have to do is to select the certification exam you want to attend and start the registration process at http://www.vmware.com/certification . All the certification exams requires authorization from VMware prior registration.

Once you have your authorization, you can schedule the exam anytime between Oct 27, 2014 and 19 Dec, 2014. To avail the 50% discount use the below promo codes.

VCP Exams: VFVCP1450
Advanced (VCAP) Exams: VFADV1450

You can schedule multiple certifications with this code as this is not a one-time-use promo.

You can read more about this promo here. Watchout this area for more news on VMware certification promotions.

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GB to/from Cylinders conversion ? Converters for you..

Posted on October 27, 2014 by admin

While working with EMC symcli , it is a challenge for the beginners, the storage administrators to convert the device size (GB/MB) to number of cylinders and vice-versa. VMAX and DMX volume operations are often performed with the device size in cylinders mentioned.

So here in this post I have put 2 converters to make these calculations easier.

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The equations for performing these calculations are simple, as below. An excel sheet with the below formulas will help you to perform the calculations offline.

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Size (GB) = No: of Cylinders x 15 x 128 x 512 /(1024 x 1024 x 1024)
No: of Cylinders = [ Size(GB) / (15 x 128 x 512 ) ] x 1024 x 1024 x 1024

Now here are the converters :

GB/MB to Cylinders/Tracks 

 

Cylinders to GB/MB/KB/Tracks

Hope this helped you. For working with symcli in offline mode, you may refer to this post.

Note : This converter is applicable for size calculation for VMAX and DMX (with enginuity 5771+ ) devices only.

 

Posted in EMC, Symmetrix, VMAX | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

VNX-VSS100 – EMC is Redefining Video Surveillance

Posted on October 16, 2014 by admin

EMC announced the new VNX storage system VNX-VSS100 on 30th september, a system purposefully-built for Video Surveillance solutions. Integrated with Isilon, EMC delivers the edge to core solutions for larger surveillance infrastructures.

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The challenges…

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Surveillance industry is fast growing, the growth rate is 2x IT market as per studies. Surveillance devices/systems are undergoing huge enhancements on daily basis. Use of conventional (non-optimized for surveillance systems, even-though they are the best considering other aspects) storage systems, will not help the customers to get the maximum out of the infrastructure and meet their requirements. With the increased number of cameras and the configuration of today’s camera systems, networked surveillance infrastructure etc… customers need to have a flexible surveillance storage  infrastructure in place.

EMC is redefining the surveillance storage with a flexible and affordable edge to core system for overcoming all these obstacles.

Edge to Core solution..

With a more distributed infrastructure, video surveillance needs an edge to core architecture – a hyper scale-able storage at the core and a high performance storage near to camera storage at the edge. EMC is redefining the video surveillance with the VNX-VSS at the edge and the enhanced Isilon system as the core storage. VNX-VSS system helps to support more number of cameras at the edge and to store high resolution videos. At the IP network core, Isilon scale-out NAS system – which can be scaled over 20PB – helps to have longer retention of the content and supports more number of cameras in network.

VNX-VSS100

VNX-VSS100 is the block-only storage optimized for use as an edge storage ( near to the cameras) in distributed surveillance systems. It is designed to deliver high-performance block storage at affordable price. VSS100 is available with FC and iSCSI connectivity options.

VSS100 has been optimized for VMware and Microsoft virtualizations and been validated with leading video management providers.

You can read the specifications of VSS100 here.

ISILON – storage at the core

At the core, Isilon enables the customers to store huge amount of surveillance data. Isilon is a certified solution by leading surveillance vendors.

Customers can select from 3 preconfigured Isilon surveillance storage solutions.

  • Isilon X400 – 720 TB: supporting 250 cameras at 1080p and 30 days retention
  • Isilon X400 – 1.4 PB: supporting 500 cameras at 1080p and 30 days retention
  • Isilon X400 – 2.5 PB: supporting 1,000 cameras at 1080p and 30 days retention

You may read more from the Ask The Experts session on ECN on Video surveillance storage and have your questions answered by experts till 27-Oct-2014.

Posted in Announcements, EMC, ISILON, VNX | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Redefined at EMC Forum 2014 – New Delhi

Posted on October 12, 2014 by admin

EMC Forum 2014 took place in New Delhi, India on Oct 9 (CIO event) and Oct 10. It was great to be a part of the second day, 10th October. A small post on Day-2 actions:

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The programs on Day-2 started with Key notes by David Webster (President, Asia Pacific & Japan, Senior Vice President, EMC Corporation) and Rajesh Janey ( President, India & SAARC, EMC Corporation).  The discussion was based on the third platform and need for becoming ‘Software-defined’.

EMC India  set a new Asian record with the twitter campaign #RicebucketChallenge which collected 3190 Kilograms of rice for the needy, just before the Keynotes speech.

After the tea break, there was a series of sessions on various products and offerings from EMC. It was difficult but managed to prioritize the sessions and managed to get the maximum out of them. Sessions on VMAX3, ViPR, ScaleIO, VPLEX etc… were all very much informational.

Session on VMAX-3 by Kevin Batty

 

Another attraction was the Hybrid Cloud. The team build hybrid cloud in just 30+ hours from the new hardware, on the floor. Attendees were given a nice demo on provisioning etc… of the hybrid cloud.

EMC VLabs covered  many of the products and services from EMC, and was open for everybody. EMC proven certifications at a discounted rate also were available at the Forum event.

ViPR – Software defined storage by Ramesh Narasimhan

At the closing session there was excellent speech by Chetan Bhagat , India’s ‘best-selling writer’. An inspirational speech in which he taught the audience to ‘Change the game’. All the attendees were given with a free copy of his latest novel ‘ Half girlfriend ‘ with additional gifts.

Chetan Bhagat on stage

Chetan Bhagat on stage

 

Overall, it was an extraordinary event with a lot of learning, fun, gifts and more… Very well done @EMCIndia @EMCForum.

 

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Nominate your heroes – EMC Elect 2015

Posted on October 7, 2014 by admin

It is that time of the year again. Nominate your social heroes for the EMC Elect program for the year 2015. Nominations are now open (from 25th August 2014) and will be closed on 31st December 2014.

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You can find the official announcement here or may fill the application form directly from here.

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EMC Elect program had very successful 2 years and 2015 will have the third batch of EMC Elects. Each nomination goes through a detailed analysis by a panel of judges and only the very much deserved will get selected.

EMC Elects will have lots of benefits including VIP treatment at various events including EMC World, product launches etc…and will have privileged access to products and services including VLab, blogger briefing sessions and more. Elects are also given membership certificate and gifts also.

So, nominate yourself or peer now for EMC Elect 2015. All the best.!

Posted in ECN, EMC, Recognition program | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

VMAX 3 – The all-new Enterprise Data Service Platform..! Part-II

Posted on July 8, 2014 by admin

We have discussed about the all-new Enterprise Data Service Platform and some comparisons with the existing VMAX systems in the previous post . Here we will look more in to the hardware enhancements and EMC ProtectPoint. Continue reading →

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The figure above shows the hardware capabilities of VMAX 100K, 200K and 400K at a glance. It have improved a lot from both capacity and performance perspectives. Upto 3x IOPS and Bandwidth, 2x logical devices and more FE IO ports. By its dimension, it can support 6x IOPS and 2x TB per a single floor tile.

VMAX3  also have a 100% SSD array which can support upto 4PB. It can provide 1M IOPS and more than 600TB in single floor tile. Along with enterprise availability, this system can have a very small response time (< milli seconds).

Availability and data protection

The new generation systems can give 6×9’s of availability and when integrated with VPLEX it is 7×9’s. Also these systems offers SNAPVX  which offers upto 1024 copies of the source volume without any impact to the IO.

EMC ProtectPoint

With the newly introduced EMC ProtectPoint the new arrays support data backup directly from primary storage, i.e, VMAX3. It uses EMC Data Domain for data backup and as in figure below, it does not use any backup servers. It avoids the extra human effort in backup and eliminates the requirement of additional backup servers. It does not effect the application or application IO and enables faster backup and instant access.

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It also enables reduced RTO and RPO and provides reliable recovery.

Another important feature with the new systems is SLO-Based management. We will have in a single system, applications which requires to be maintained at different Service Level Objectives (transaction processing, Email etc…). These may require to be maintained at different data tiers and hence manual management is always very difficult.

With the new policy based automation, we can have these different applications based on their SLO. We can have different policies like Diamond (fastest), Gold(faster), and Silver etc.. We can define the applications to use these policies as per our requirement. And we can modify the policies dynamically too..

Thus VMAX3 brings improved performance, added features, easier management, better data recovery and disaster management and altogether an Enterprise Data Service Platform..!

Posted in Announcements, EMC, Symmetrix, VMAX | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

VMAX 3 – The all-new Enterprise Data Service Platform..! Part-I

Posted on July 8, 2014 by admin

[Link to the second post here]

EMC today announced the next generation VMAX series – VMAX3, which is the all-new Enterprise Data Service Platform rather than a simple storage system. Lot many enhancements, new hardware/software features and more…

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Enterprise Data Service Platform Continue reading →

The new generation VMAX system is not only an enterprise storage system, but an Enterprise Data Service Platform. With the existing Centralized/Self Service IT customers were finding it difficult to balance the 5 key things – Cost, Agility, Scale, Trust and IT control. With the VMAX3 systems, we can meet all these five fundamentals of running an IT environment.

From VMAX to VMAX3 

Comparing the previous generation of  VMAX systems and the all-new VMAX3 ?, differences are lot many. From the hardware architecture to the Operating Environment, which enables improved service levels, scalability, availability, better disaster discovery, 1-click service levels etc…

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With the Dynamic Virtual Matrix, the new systems have multi processor scale-out architecture enhanced with dynamic resource allocation. A VMAX 400K system can have up to 384 CPU cores..! With the dynamic allocation of resources, we can allocate CPU resources any time. This can be done among the Front-End and Back-End or between applications.

If we see a Back-End Port being highly utilized, we may allocate more CPU cores to it. Here there is no dedicated CPU-Port binding as in earlier models.

New Operating System – The Hypermax Operating System – allows easier management through ViPR and Unisphere, Block, File and Cloud access from inside-the-box. It also integrates VPLEX for mobility, Recoverpoint for data protection, and Data Domain  for backup etc…

There are huge improvements in FAST storage tiering with VMAX3 systems. It allows management of data tiering and gives us improved options for performance tuning for various type of applications.

Another interesting comparison is the VM support with the new generation and the earlier one.

VMAX 400K – 70,000 VMs                VMAX 40K – 24,000 VMs

VMAX 200K – 32,000 VMs                VMAX 20K – 16,000 VMs

VMAX 100K – 12,000 VMs                 VMAX 10K – 10,000 VMs

Really interesting, right ? We have more interesting features in the Hardware and EMC ProtectPoint in the Part-II

Posted in Announcements, EMC, Symmetrix, VMAX | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

EMC VPLEX installation – Part I – Initialization

Posted on May 27, 2014 by admin

As you may already know, EMC VPLEX is the storage virtualization product from EMC, released in 2010.

I had the opportunity recently to install a EMC VPLEX for our lab setup. As I was not much familiar with VPEX , it was a challenging experience and there was a lot of learning too.. Thanks to EMC procedure generators too.

Hardware and cabling 

The one we got is a VS2 single engine model in our lab. The hardware include a single engine (looks much like a CX4-240 SPE), a management server (a 1U server similar to the VNX Control Station) and a pair of SPSes (Standby Power Supplies).

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The basic network connectivity for a VS2 single engine is as below.  Power, the best practice as always, SPS inputs should be from 2 different UPS sources. SPS inturn will provide power the directors in the engine. Management server is having only single power input as this is not a single point of failure in data access.

Once the cabling is completed, we can power ON the VPLEX. The directos will boot up from the internal FLASH drive . For initialization, we will use the Service port on the Management server and connect it to laptop directly.

Bringing cluster to network

Change the network settings as below. And then we are all set to access the Management Server.

VPLEX-network

 

Now the laptop will be able to communicate with the management server, whose default IP address is 128.221.252.2 . Have an SSH session to 128.221.252.2, via any terminal software like putty. SSH v2 is recommended and you may log the session output.  Login with username service (refer EMC documentation for password).

Now as the first step of initialization, we can change the hostname for the VPLEX management server to the desired one.

sudo /opt/emc/VPlex/tools/ipconfig/changehostname.py -n [NewHostName]

As my cabling were as in above figure, my management server was able to communicate with the engines. Same was verified by pinging to their IPs (Director 1-A via 128.221.252.35 and Director 1-B via 128.221.252.36) from management server. Here director 1-A and 1-B are named as because they are from engine 1.

Now we can set the management IP address for the cluster. Telnet to the port 49500 to the management server from itself (i.e, telnet localhost 49500 ) to connect to the VPlexCLI. Once connected, run the below command to change management IP address.

management-server set-ip -i [IP Address: Net Mask] -g [gateway] eth3

Yes,.! I now have my cluster accessible from my network. We can have a putty session (SSH) to the newly assigned IP address to configure VPLEX. Credentials are the same service credentials . Connect to VPlexCLI,

telnet localhost 49500 

configuration system-setup

will do the configuration of the VPlex cluster. You will be prompted to select the configuration type . i.e, Local, Metro or Geo. You will have to give the Call-home details etc.. too during the steps.

Now entering https://management_server_IP_address/ from browser will take you to the Unisphere for VPLEX screen, the one we were waiting for..!

Note : Mine was a Geo configuration, but the cluster connectivity was not in place. Also during the initialization, my backend storage connectivity was also not configured. Our target was to get the box initialized. Further posts regarding the configuration part will be coming soon..!

Posted in EMC, Vitulization, VPLEX | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment