Month: August 2013

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EMC Storage Analytics (ESA) 2.0 with VMAX arrays

So I (Drew Tonnesen, @drewtonnesen) am guest blogging again here at Cody’s site.  I’ll add my name now in the beginning to avoid the confusion (yes there has been) that this post isn’t from Cody but given the blog URL I suppose it is inevitable no matter what I do.  And since I am not starting my own blog which would more likely contain hints on how to avoid going insane with kids (yes alcohol helps) I trust the readers can figure it out.  On to the post…

I’ve been working on this new release for EMC Storage Analytics (ESA) 2.0 for what seems like ages now.  The first two releases of ESA (1.0, 1.5) supported the VNX  platforms.  The 2.0 release is the first with VMAX support!  As the Symmetrix engineering contact for the VMAX component of ESA, I have had first-hand input and testing of the product, along with putting together a good part of the documentation.  This post jumps the gun a little as the product will be officially revealed next week at VMworld but what’s a little pre-announcement among friends?  I’ll give a brief run-down of the release below.

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The EMC booth at VMworld 2013!! Don’t miss it!

As with most events, EMC goes all out. This years’ VMworld 2013 is no exception. Besides the myriad of sessions, meet-ups and parties, the EMC Booth has a lot in store for those who stop by.

I cannot disclose everything the EMC booth will offer (tons of great surprises and *cough* prizes *cough* might be planned) but here is a little sneak peak!

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EMC booth VMworld 2012

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Changing the default IOPS value for VMware Round Robin and Symmetrix Devices

A common recommendation from storage vendors is to change the default IOPS setting for VMwares’ Native Multi-Pathing (NMP) Path Selection Policy (PSP) Round Robin. The IOPS setting controls how many I/Os are sent down a single logical path before switching to the next path. By default this number is 1,000 I/Os. The VMAX recommendation is to set this to 1. The purpose of this blog post is not to debate the setting, but to help those who want to use it. Regardless, I have seen many customers benefit from this recommendation. Once they see a benefit they want to know–can I make this setting a default?

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Expanding a Symmetrix Striped Metavolume

This is a topic that I get asked about a lot and a recent internal email thread prompted me to write a post about it. On a Symmetrix array if you want a volume larger than 240 GB you need to create a metavolume. When creating a metavolume you have two configuration choices; concatenated or striped. There are many benefits to striped over concatenated (all of them performance-related) but one disadvantage. Due to their nature striped metavolumes are harder to expand. Until a few years ago thin striped metas couldn’t even be expanded online. So the decision was easy–do you think you will need to expand or not. In Enginuity 5875 and Solutions Enabler online expansion of striped metavolumes was allowed.

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EMC Storage Integrator 3.0 released!

Today (August 14th 2013) EMC released the latest version of the EMC Storage Integrator, version 3.0. I blogged about ESI a few weeks back and the PowerShell cmdlets that it offered:

https://www.codyhosterman.com/2013/07/29/scripting-esi-powershell-cmdlets-and-vmware/

This release fills in some of the gaps that were present in earlier versions–especially when it comes to VMAX storage provisioning. The flagship features of this release though are:

  • Mailbox provisioning for Microsoft Exchange
  • Database Availability Group (DAG) support with native or EMC RecoverPoint replication
  • Storage control activities for Microsoft System Center Orchestrator.

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The VMAX Content Pack for VMware vCenter Log Insight

Well, as I (Drew Tonnesen, [email protected]) mentioned I would soon be publishing a VMAX Content Pack for Log Insight and I have.  It can be found here in the VMware Cloud Marketplace:

https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/products/emc-vmax-content-pack

All the information that you need to use the VMAX content pack is included in the download so I’ll keep this blog entry short.  There is also a demo you can view to get an overview of the capabilities of the content pack.

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Log Insight with Symmetrix VMAX – revisited for Unisphere

Cody recently posted an entry that discussed how Solutions Enabler can be configured to send logs to VMware vCenter Log Insight (https://www.codyhosterman.com/2013/07/10/using-vmwares-vcenter-log-insight-with-symmetrix-vmax/).  He mentioned that in order for Unisphere for VMAX to send its information, additional configuration was required.   So here is that additional information.

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