At EMC World 2016, EMC focused on the industry-leading Unity midrange storage array platform. The platform not only provides users with unparalleled performance, automation and data services, but also specially designed new products to significantly reduce the size of the market to achieve the block and file system functions into a single hardware box.

This article introduces you to UnityVSA (Virtual Storage Appliance).

UnityVSA runs on common hardware on the VMware ESXi hypervisor. UnityVSA is a unified array that provides data blocks (iSCSI), files (NFS & SMB / CIFS), and Vvols (Virtual Volumes) on an integrated platform. The uniform look and feel of the unified platform makes it possible to use HTML5 Unisphere. Consistent feature set and data services, such as unified snapshots and replication, are available on UnityVSA.

UnityVSA can coexist with applications that provide storage that runs on the same server hardware. You can deploy multiple VSA instances on a single server.

For a virtual system, the license key is based on the UUID (Universal Unique Identifier) of the system. These keys, which contain the license (.lic) file, can be obtained from the "Get License Online" window. The user must provide the virtual system UUID and License Authorization Code (LAC) ID to download the license file.

The license file must be placed on a computer that can access the virtual Unity system. By clicking the Install License link, the user can upload the license file from the local computer to the storage system and then accept the license agreement.

The following is a typical scenario for UnityVSA. The license is valid for 12 months. One month before their expiration, they saw a license expiration notice on Unisphere. These alerts are repeated periodically. There is also a "Get License" link in the GUI that directs customers to the Software Licensing Center where they can renew their licenses. Once the license expires, users can continue to use UnityVSA, but cannot provide any new things until they renew their licenses.

Please note that technical support is tied to VSA. So if the license expires, the customer's technical support contract will expire. From a diagnostic point of view, a technical support contract is your best option. The license expiration date is also stored in the Electronic License Management System (ELMS).

The following chart shows UnityVSA's capabilities over Unity. It is important to note that dependencies on specific physical hardware functions are not supported by UnityVSA.