Ask the Expert: VMAX3 Hypervisor, Embedded NAS Assessment, Local and Remote Replication Strategies

Hi,

When will Recover point be supported in VMAX3 ?

Similarly Please Share the VMAX3 Roadmap for upcoming features , which will help us to position VMAX3 vs VMAX2 .

i have also done the comparison between VMAX10k and VMAX100k , with limited information i have from partner portal.

Thank you.

Welcome to the ECN Ask the Experts event!

This discussion is now officially open for questions. Let's make of this an informative and respectful channel for exchange of information about VMAX 3.

Cheers.

I would like to start out with two questions ?

1) How is this different from a gateway model (i used to use CFS-14 with DMX2000 )

2) Why embedded NAS on a VMAX when you have an outstanding platform in Isilon ?

With all previous generations of Symmetrix the only way to achieve SRDF consistency across multiple arrays required an external host managing that consistency and the cycle switching. With the Hypervisor built in at the array level now is there the opportunity (now or roadmapped) to allow for that functionality to come back within the array (as long as a VMAX3 is involved) and drop the requirement for an external management host?

I've seen several references to the removal of support for metas on VMAX3. How does that work if I have to use SRDF to get data to a VMAX 20K that requires metas?

Dynamox,

The Internal eNAS Datamover runs on the VMAX3 hypervisor as a VM container, we run a virtual version of the control stations and the datamovers.  We keep the active data movers and control stations on different directors from the standby to ensure the highest availability.  We use an internal cut though driver (essentially the HBA for the datamovers) to access the storage through internal Virtual Front End Ports and we have a secure internal network for all the internal communication and management. 

Provisioning to eNAS is pretty much the same as provisioning to any host,   we have a masking view that is already configured for you when the array is installed.  You can then provision storage to the data movers with or without a Service Level (essentially a target response time) so you get all the functionality of a VNX but you get the added benefits of VMAX3 SLO and the robustness of the VMAX hardware platform.

We have a lot of information on the technote

www.emc.com/collateral/technical-documentation/h13904-vmax3-embedded-nas-technical-note.pdf.

The Doc does a much better job on the positioning of the product than I ever could

Allen,

Managing SRDF consistency across multiple arrays is still done via a host running SE and the SRDF daemon.  I can't go into roadmap on here but right now that management piece hasn't changed.

On your second question for Metas, all you need to do on the VMAX3 is create a pairing of the same size or bigger on the V3, VMAX systems connecting via SRDF must be running Enginuity 5876.272.177

We have significantly improved SRDF operation under the covers with more concurrency on writes for SRDF/S and Multi Session Cycles on SRDF/A.

For configuring SRDF you should definitely check out Unisphere 8.x the management interface is pretty simple to configure everything for you, on V2 and V3 you can literally just right click and select Protect and SRDF, the wizard will work out the number of hypers and all create a device group for managing.  Worth looking at.

We are a mainframe shop, anything i need to worry/understand/take into consideration when dealing with CKDs ..SRDF/S of CKDs between VMAX2 and VMAX3 ?

Allen,

It is also important to point out that the VMAX3 HYPERMAX OS with Solutions Enabler 8.0.1 and beyond relaxes some of the existing SRDF device pairing requirements with respect to meta devices and device sizes. In these cases, pairing devices of mismatched sizes may result in a smaller to larger device size pairing with restrictions resulting for SRDF restore, failover, SRDF/Star, and swap operations. As such, it is critically important to understand the implications of pairing devices of differing sizes and configurations with the new platform.

Best Regards,

-Mike

Allen,

HYPERMAX OS does not support meta devices; however, device pairs between non-meta devices on an array running HYPERMAX OS and a meta device on an array running Enginutiy 5876 are supported. Device pairs between a non-meta device (HYPERMAX OS) and a meta device (Enginutiy 5876) may be either concatenated or striped.

Best Regards,

-Mike

I guess you are going to be a bit behind me on the VMAX3 dynamox. No CKD support yet on the VMAX3 platform and our account team can't even give us an estimate on when it will be there. We were told that the 40K is the "go to" platform for mainframe for the foreseeable future. I'm sure they do have it on the roadmap but nobody seems to be talking timelines yet..

good to know, thanks Allen

Allen,

Thanks for your interest in mainframe support on VMAX3. EMC's development team is working to deliver CKD support on VMAX3, but the engineers in this session do not have access to mainframe roadmap information. Unfortunately, you will need to contact your EMC account team for the latest status.

Frank Nicolo

VMAX Business Unit

Dynamox,

Great question around why offer embedded NAS on VMAX3 when Isilon is a great platform for enterprise file storage. Here is the logic.

VMAX represents the leading storage solution used by customers to store, protect, and replicate mission-critical block storage. While this is the primary reason customers buy VMAX today, many have expressed interest in storing moderate amounts of mission-critical or Tier 2 file capacity on VMAX to consolidate islands of storage in their data center. VMAX3 unified allows customers to maintain “one infrastructure” to manage both large amounts of mission-critical block storage vital to their business with moderate amounts of file capacity.

This approach helps our customers reduce total cost of ownership since embedded NAS runs directly on VMAX3 hardware resources and is managed through the familiar Unisphere interface. An added benefit is that embedded NAS extends the value of VMAX to file by offering rich data services across both block and file storage. Examples of VMAX3 data services spanning across block and file capacity include FAST, service level provisioning, Dynamic Host IO Limits, and Data at Rest Encryption.

Isilon remains the premier scale-out NAS solution from EMC for >150TB file installs with its ability to seamlessly scale linearly from simple 3-node designs to 144 nodes providing tremendous throughput that is required from large data sets. VMAX3 unified consolidates huge amounts of mission-critical block storage combined with storing moderate amounts of mission-critical or Tier 2 file data as mentioned above.

Hope this helps.

Frank Nicolo

VMAX Business Unit