What’s new in ViPR 2.0

Posted on May 13, 2014 by admin

EMC World 2014 announced great enhancements with EMC ViPR – EMC’s software defined storage solution. With the ViPR 2.0 software release the product is going to have a lot new with the hardware side and the software components.

ViPR 2.0-I1

Some of the major hardware enhancements are,

Continue reading →

1. Commodity hardware support : ViPR can now support commodity hardware also, i.e, ViPR can now run on certified 3rd party hardware. Currently HP SL4540 is the only certified model. But more will be available soon…

2. Geo-distributed Data Center Support : with the With the Geo-distributed Data Center support, arrays from multiple sites can now work as a single logical resource. This configuration allows active/active data access (read/write) with great consistency.

3. Array support : Prior ViPR 2.0 the native arrays supported only were EMC VNX, VMAX, Isilon and NetApp FAS series. Now with the latest edition, it supports more systems including all new Project Nile, as in below snap.

ViPR_2.0-I3

Also ViPR now can support more arrays with the OpenStack support. Below are the systems supported now . All new, as OpenStack support itself is new with ViPR 2.0

ViPR_2.0-I4

4. Advancements in VPLEX and RecoverPoint support :  There are major enhancements with VPLEX and RecoverPoint support with the new ViPR 2.0 . Of course with the new multi-site configurations it should be..!

Software enhancements include,

Multi-protocol access including File, Block, Object and HDFS is a great advantage of new ViPR. Block support is enabled by EMC ScaleIO. Even though ScaleIO is being used, the management is through the ViPR controller only. Features for creating virtual pools and variable performance tiers are also possible with ViPR Block.

For Centera workloads ViPR CAS support is available (Object).

With the enhanced data protection system, single hardware failures to Data Center failures can be recovered easily. As we discussed above with the ViPR Multi-site, even data center failure can be recovered. Local hardware failures like disk etc.. will not require any WAN traffic for rebuilding.

endnote

Posted in Announcements, EMC, ViPR | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Project Nile (EMC ECS) – A complete hyper-scale storage..!

Posted on May 5, 2014 by admin

 

Nile - 1Nile - 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Project Nile was announced in the mid of 2013 to provide the IT service providers with easily consumable and massively scalable storage platform. Now the Project is going to be GA soon, a great news for the IT industry.

Continue reading →

The first and the best thing here is, Project Nile is massively scalable and suits to any data center. With its multi-protocol support, it serves almost all types of customer’s needs. This makes it a complete storage platform . Project Nile supports for the below five categories of data types. Currently the Project Nile will be GA with Object, Block and HDFS capabilities. Researches are goin on, on the Key Value part.

Nile - 2

For unstructured data like HDFS and object based data, the small configuration available is with 360 TB and the maximum can be 2.9 PB. Block configuration can have a minimum configuration with 120 TB (12K IOPS) and have configurations with 240 TB (24K IOPS) etc also. For mixed environments, the lowest model can be with 120TB for block and 360 TB for object and HDFS. Medium configuration can have 1.4 PB for unstructured data and 240 TB for block.

Use of commodity hardware is a very big advantage for Project Nile. It can make use of x86 hardware with SAS and ethernet connectivity. With these configuration, racks can be clustered to scale in 100’s of PBs. Alongwith the commodity hardware, it makes use of ViPR 2.0 software and ScaleIO.

Cloud users and providers will be happy with this project, as this brings a lot for the cloud. For public cloud implementation, Project Nile provides hyper-scalability and lower $/GB. And it is very easy to use also. For private cloud, Project Nile provides enhanced reliability and security. Also it is easy to use, and more flexible. With all these advaced features Project Nile is a very big hope for the future, the future of cloud..!

Posted in Announcements, EMC | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

VNXe3200 – a new member in VNX/VNXe family

Posted on May 4, 2014 by admin

 

Yes, let’s welcome the new member in the VNX/VNXe family – VNXe3200 . Even-though it is a VNXe, it is having almost all important features of the VNX-2 series, a true Unified system.

vipinvk.wordpress.com-VNXe3200-1

 

As said in the release, it is truly  “Enterprise features at entry-level prices“..!  VNXe3200 can have up to 200 TB raw capacity, with support to features including FAST Cache, FAST VP etc… Added MCx Multicore optimization and advanced snapshots also are some of the feature enhancements with VNXe3200.  Here you can find the specifications at a glance and price and more.

Continue reading →

VNXe3200-2VNXe3200-5

Unlike the previous VNXe models, VNXe3200 is a unified model with support to multiple protocols. It supports CIFS, SMB3, NFS, iSCSI and FC, i.e, having the capabilities of both SAN and NAS. In VNX models, we have two controller types (SP and DM) for serving the SAN and NAS functionalities. Here with new VNXe3200, we can have both of these functionalities via a single type of controller. More from the hardware point, VNXe3200 have FC Connectivity..!!

From the software point of view, much like VNX-2, VNXe3200 supports FAST suite. But the pool configuration here is bit different. In VNX, NAS and SAN have different controllers and pools for them are also at different levels. Here in the new model, both are controlled by a single controller (common Storage Processors) and so the pools for the both (SAN and NAS) are the same..! Similarly, the snapshots (for SAN and NAS) are also of the same kind.

 

Along with the support to VAAI and VASA, VNXe3200 came with a new feature ‘ VMware ESX Auto-discovery ‘. It allows the ESX machines and even the VMs to get  auto-discovered. VNXe3200 also have ESA – EMC Storage Analytics – support for VMware. On the Microsoft side, the new VNXe supports SMB3, ODX (similar to VAAI with offloading capabilities), SMI-S , ESI (EMC Storage Integrator – enables easier and faster provisioning for Exchange, SharePonit etc…) etc..

VNXe3200-support

As in the above screenshot, the support page in Unisphere links us to the Online trainings, ECN, support.emc.com and more. Support page also helps us to have a live chat with the EMC support representative  from the box. This ‘ improved support ‘  makes it even more easy to work with the product.

Wanna try ? here is the link for free simulator…!!

Posted in Announcements, EMC, VNXe | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Multicore FAST Cache, its FAST Cache++

Posted on April 23, 2014 by admin

A mid-range storage revolution, a new era started in September 2013, introduction of VNX-2 Multicore systems, brought many improvements in product features . With Multicore architecture below are the highlights of software/hardware improvements.

MultiCore_FastCache-4

 

Here I am talking about one of the software feature which got some serious enhancements, the FAST Cache, with MCx it is Multicore FAST Cache.

Continue reading →

Improved performance and TCO

With the new architecture, it brought great advancements in performance for various applications . For applications with unpredictable change in IO activity and frequent accesses, Multicore FAST Cache shown great improvements in performance.  Also, customers can have FAST cache ranges from 100 GB to 4.2 TB  now.  Efficient use of Multicore FAST Cache enables the customer to have a lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) by having better performance ($/IOPS) with lower cost. Multicore FAST Cache increased the efficiency in use of FLASH drives in comparison to the legacy configurations.

Here you can find a great post from Sam Lucido which shows the comparison in performace between legacy FAST cache and Multicore FAST cache.

 Operations 

Operations of Multicore FAST Cache is much similar to the legacy FAST Cache. As in legacy one,  all the traditional LUNs and Thin Pools created after the FAST Cache creation will be FAST Cache enabled by default. We will have to manually enable the same for existing LUNs and Pools.

Data Promotion to FAST Cache

When the system identifies a 64KB block data is being accessed frequently, it promotes this block to FLASH based extreme performance Multicore FAST Cache. This is decided based on the number of accesses for that block in a specific short time period. Thus on subsequent accesses for the block, data will be accessed from the FAST Cache (FASTer drives ), which increases the IOPS for application accessing it.

Data already residing in FLASH drives (FLASH Pool LUNs/FLASH based traditional LUNs) will not get promoted to FAST Cache. Also small-block sequential I/O, very large sized I/Os, Zero filling requests and some high frequency request accesses etc… are handled by Multicore Cache and are not promoted to Multicore FAST Cache.

Read/Write Operations

MultiCore_FastCache-5

 

Shown here is the architecture and data flow with Multicore FAST Cache. For host access to block , it first checks in Multicore Cache. If it is a hit, data will be served by Multicore Cache itself. But in case of a miss, it checks the memory map for Multicore FAST Cache. If the data is present in FAST Cache, it will be served by the FAST Cache. In case of multiple misses for a data block, it will be considered for promotion as explained above. Data will be promoted and the memory map will be updated to make it available for future data accesses.

Multicore FAST Cache will be cleaned and flushed to make room for new and frequently accessed data blocks. If there are dirty pages (blocks not yet written to disk) in FAST Cache, these will be written to disk during minimal activity period. Once the dirty page is written to disk, it will be marked as clean page in FAST Cache. Flushing will be done to make free space in FAST Cache. This is done by flushing Least Recently Used (LRU) blocks to disk. This will make new promotions possible to the FAST Cache.

For FAST Cache configuration, I believe this post will be useful for you.

endnote

 

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

EMC Elect 2014…!

Posted on January 15, 2014 by admin

Elect2014-webToday,  EMC announced the 80 member batch of EMC Elect for the year 2014.

I am really proud to be a part of the team. A perfect start for 2014 and the best New Year gift I can get from EMC…!

Continue reading →

I would like to congratulate all my friends who are now part of the list.

This year’s batch of 80 includes people from EMC partner organisations, customers EMC employees and independent members also. 11 of this group are customers  31 are partners and 31 are EMC employees. We have 6 independent members and 1 analyst also in the group.

Full list of members can be found here

A lot many events are being planned and some are already planned. So the year ahead is going to be of a lot of excitements.

Once again I would like to congratulate you all my fellow EMC Elects and I wish you all, a great 2014 ahead.

Posted in ECN, EMC, Recognition program | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Happy New Year 2014

Posted on December 31, 2013 by admin

It was too fast as always. 2013, an year just passed as it was some hours only. A remarkable year which brought me a lot new. New organisation, new roles and responsibilities… Hope you guys also had a great time this year.

Now it is time for welcoming 2014, the new year. Let’s hope we will have a very happy and prosperous year ahead. Hope the new year will give us new challenging tasks, will help us to achieve new heights and more and more…

I wish you all my friends a happy new year 2014…

Happy-New-Year

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

EMC VNX MirrorView configuration

Posted on December 18, 2013 by admin

This time I am discussing here about MirrorView Configuration. Not something new but I believe there are not many posts available on internet discussing the steps to configure MirrorView.

MirrorView is the replication technology used between EMC CLARiiON and VNX systems. This is available with Synchronous and Asynchronous configurations. Let us come to the configuration now.

Continue reading →

I will use the name VNX01 for source storage system and VNX02 for the destination system here for convenience. Let us name source LUN as LUN01 and replica LUN as LUN02.I am assuming here the connection between VNX01 and VNX02 is already established.

Different wizards are available in Unisphere which makes things easy for storage admins. I will recommend using MirrorView Wizard (Unisphere>Data Protection>MirrorView Wizard) for configuring MirrorView.  Steps below are without the use of wizard.

Wizard

Once logged in to the Unisphere Manager (for VNX01) we will identify/create the source LUN (LUN01) to be replicated. If it is existing LUN it can be in production while MirrorView is being configured on it.

We will then create the secondary LUN (LUN02) if it is not already created. We can create the LUN from Unisphere manager for VNX02 or from the VNX01 itself. Creating from VNX01 will be easier as it will check the parameters (size etc…) itself. For this, we will right click on LUN01 and navigate to Mirrorview>Create Secondary Image.  A new window will be displaying the secondary storage system (VNX02) with the available RAID Groups and Pools. We can select the desired one and create the LUN02.

3

Note : If we have to specify a specific name for LUN02, we will have to goto LUN02 properties in Unisphere for VNX02.

Once LUN01 and LUN02 are created, the next step will be to create a Remote Mirror. You can do this by right clicking on LUN01, MirrorView > Create Remote Mirror. You will be prompted for the name of the mirror, type ( whether Synchronous or Asynchronous) etc…

1

2

For Synchronous configuration we can optionally select Write Intent Log. WIL is a small sized LUN (128 MB for CX systems and 2GB for VNX systems). It helps to avoid the need of a full resynchronization in case if the secondary image is fractured and there is some interruption in primary. If WIL is configured you can enable it for MV/S sessions. You can allocate LUNs to WIL by selecting Allocate Write Intent Log from Data Protection tab.

Now we have the mirror session created. We will be now adding the secondary image (LUN02, already created) to it. From the Data Protection tab, select the mirror session just created and click on add secondary. Select LUN02 and select the LUN to start initial sync (may schedule it for a later window also).

4

Thus we have configured the MirrorView session between LUN01 and LUN02. It will be better to add the session to Consistency Groups if available, for easier management. We can goto the properties of the CG and add the sessions to it.

endnote

 

Posted in CLARiiON, EMC, Replication, VNX | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

VMware Workstation 10

Posted on September 14, 2013 by admin

How many of us have Not used (and are not using) VMware Workstation ? I strongly believe not many.. From years VMware workstation is the perfect partner for me and for many.

And it is a very good news for all us from VMware, they released Workstation version 10 a week ago on 3rd September..!

10

As always, the new version brings to us a bunch of new features. Let us go through some of them.

Continue reading →

Operating systems..

Workstation 10 supports Windows 8.1,  Windows 2012 R2, Ubuntu 13.10 etc.. It gives more flexibility for the use of Windows 8.1. We can now convert a Windows 8.1 physical machine to a virtual machine.

Advanced hardware support

Hardware support limitations are now increased and this can be concluded as in the below snap. With release 10 we can have upto 16 vCPUs and can go up to 64 GB of memory. Also Virtual SATA Controller is introduced with release 10.

Workstation 10_hardware supportFor an easier comparison, I am pasting a snap of the same from Workstation 9.

Workstation 9_hardware support

Other interesting features

Expiring virtual machines

We can create restricted VMs (even though, this was available in previous version also) with a specific expiry date. We can have alert settings for VMs which are configured to expire. We can have a specific message sent in advance ( x days before the expiry).

Virtual tablet sensor

Workstation 10 is included with virtual tablet sensor. This enables us to take full advantage Workstation running on a tablet. While running on a tablet it uses accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, and even the ambient light sensor – yes the workstation is in a tablet.

How to get Workstation 10

If you want to purchase workstation 10, visit http://store.vmware.com/buyworkstation . Everybody will be interested to feel the differences, and if its free.. ?!! for 30 days free trial visit, http://www.vmware.com/go/try-workstation . And for those who are already running Workstation 8.x or 9.x, VMware offers an upgrade to release 10. You may try http://store.vmware.com/upgradeworkstation

To read more of the Whats new click here

endnote

 

Posted in Announcements, Vitulization, VMware | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Have you tried new EMC Support App for Android ?

Posted on August 25, 2013 by admin

Have you tried EMC Support app for Android ? EMC recently released Android application for EMC Support which enables you to access Service Requests on the move. With this app you can view the status of EMC service requests anytime/anywhere. The app was only available for iOS (for iPad and iPhone) earlier, from July-2013 the same is available for Android users also.

You may download the app from Google Play.

Once installed, you have to enter the credentials (same used for https://support.emc.com) for configuring the app. You have to set a 4 digit lock code, which will be used for accessing the app later (no need for entering the support site credentials every time).

Continue reading →

1

You will able to view the Service Request’s status once logged in. In the current version (v1.0.001) we have only read only access, i.e, we will not be able to add notes to the SR. In the coming versions we can expect this added feature as per EMC. (note : the below snaps are from Google play images, as I will not able to display my SR/Customer information here)

4EMC guarantee the security of the use of this app with the use of certain encryption method used with this tool. We have to enter the Support website credentials for configuring the app and the communications between EMC and mobile app are done through secure, encrypted protocols as per EMC.  Application information stored in the phone are encrypted and the encryption key is not stored in phone. Also repeated attempts to access the app with invalid credentials will erase all the settings from phone and the app will be in the ‘initial installed’ state (ref : ECN document )

Thus the app will be very useful for EMC customers and partners  who will be accessing the Service Requests frequently. It is almost impossible for one to remain in front of PC all the time, right ?

endnote

 

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

Configuring storage projection notification for VNX file systems

Posted on July 13, 2013 by admin

Storage projection is always a worry for any storage admin. For the EMC Celerra/VNX file systems we have option for viewing the projection. In this post I am trying to explain the steps for enabling notification for this, a feature available with VNX OE 7.1.x.

Login to your VNX, and select the storage system from the drop down. Go to the system option and select the Monitoring and Alerts.

1

Select the Notifications for file from the options,

Continue reading →

2

Navigate to Storage Projection and click on Create for creating a new notification.

4

The window pops up, where you can fill in the details for creating a new notification.

5In the storage type we can select either File System or Storage Pool. Here we have selected File System . For Storage Resource option we have selected All File Systems, which can also be All Storage Pools, or specific File System/Storage Pool. In the Frequency option, we can set the frequency at which the notification to be repeated if the same conditions remain. Here we can give values in the range 1-65,536 hours.

We have the option to set the notification on either Maximum Size or Current Size. If we have enabled auto-extension on a File System, we will have a maximum capacity defined for it to which it will auto-extend and a Current Capacity which is presented. These are the choices available in the Notify On selection. Thus, the Maximum Size will be available for auto-extending file system only.

As given in the options, we can enable the notification to be sent a maximum of 365 days (i.e, an year ) before the file system actually gets filled up. The notification can be sent via email or SNMP traps.

Having an option for storage projection notification, that too in advance will make life easy for storage admins. Will surely do more research on this .

endnote

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