Can someone provide me some clarity regarding the Containers in VMAX3? Especially looking for differentiation between Tools(0&1), CS(0&1) and MGMT(0&1).

Hi Jasonc,

Thank you for responding to my query. I have gone through the "Container Applications" section in the "VMAX3 Family Product Guide". This provides me information that Management software and NAS can be embedded on the VMAX3 array itself and it runs as a VM on the Hypermax OS. However, this Guide does not talk about Tools-0 or Tools-1 and MGMT-0 and MGMT-1. I am more interested in knowing about the functionality of Tools-0 and Tools-1. From a Product Support Engineer's perspective when I connect to Tools-0 via SSH and run commands what is it that the commands affect? I am okay with the fail over part.

Also regarding the Service Processor, I am not sure if we can say that it has been virtualized. In VMAX3 we have 2 MMCSs (Management Module Control Stations) which combine the functionality of a Service Processor and normal Management Module. So, yes we do have redundancy as far as the Service Processor is concerned.

Clear definitions of Tools(0&1), CS(0&1) and MGMT(0&1) will be really helpful.

Thanks,

Shubhradeep Ghatak

What sort of information are you after?

The VMAX 3 product guide contains information on eManagement (EMGT) and eNAS(CS). See the "Container applications" section.

Prior to VMAX 3, the service processor was a physical laptop connected to the array. This has been virtualized  an now runs as a VM called TOOLS-0 and TOOLS-1. Availability has been enhanced and there is no single point of failure on the SP with two VMs. TOOLS-0 will fail over to TOOLS-1 for high availability as required. This High Availability feature applies to all of the container applications.

Thanks a lot for the clarification Jason. This is very helpful. Regarding, TOOLS-x we can take it offline.

Thanks,

Shubhradeep Ghatak

Regarding MGMT-x containers, they are deployments of Unisphere for VMAX and Solutions Emabler (Symapi Server) and are used by customers to manage the array via GUI or CLI. For GUI management, on the customer network, point a browser to the MGMT-x address and you have access to the Unisphere application. For CLI, an Instance of Solutions Enabler needs to be installed on a customer machine (as a symapi client) and directed to run commands on the symapi server running on MGMT. In both cases, this is IP communication between host and MGMT. No SAN connectivity required to use the management functionality of MGMT if it is deployed with a VMAX.

For TOOLS-x, these are not customer tools, so this discussion should be continued on an Internal forum.

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