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DSE on VMAX3
I'm digging through documentation trying to find the right way to activate DSE for RDFGs on a VMAX 400K that replicates to a VMAX 20K. I seem to be finding a combination of conflicting and incomplete information on the formatting of commands for the VMAX3 side of things. Is there any documentation anyone is aware of that is specific to this situation?
There is a LOT of info out there for this (and I have experience with this) on the VMAX2 and earlier arrays, but the VMAX3 does it different and it isn't clear to me what will and won't work. I really need to know this before I start trying it out as I have no test environment.
KW160
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February 13th, 2017 10:00
On the VMAX3 and All Flash series of arrays, there are three operations that relate to DSE:
1. Enable the SRP to support DSE. (This will be defaultly enabled on the Default SRP)
2. Set the dse_max_cap setting to limit the total size of the DSE.
3. Enable "autostart for DSE" on the SRDF group. (Defaultly on for VMAX3/AF)
These operations are described in the documents below:
EMC™ Solutions Enabler Array
Controls and Management
Version 8.3
CLI User Guide
Solutions Enabler SRDF Family
Version 8.3
CLI User Guide
Allen Ward
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February 13th, 2017 10:00
I've been through both of those documents, but it doesn't seem to call out clearly the process for just the VMAX3 side of things. It might make sense if you already know the answer, but figuring out what they mean the way they word it isn't the same thing *lol*
Thank you and I'll be putting this into my playbook for later this week. Hopefully this is everything I need for this end of the link.
zzanne
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February 13th, 2017 13:00
Are you looking to activate it or modify it? Is it different depending on what array you are replicating to? I know my 100K is enabled by default (which I found out only because of a large data dump over a smaller link).
Allen Ward
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February 17th, 2017 07:00
I was trying to set it up, but it does appear that it is set up automatically. I've been able to modify that max SRP capacity used by DSE but there are still a lot of gaps with VMAX3.
EMC Engineering recommended that I drop the default spillover threshold from 50% to 40% but none of the commands to do that appear to work. I also can't find any way to monitor DSE usage in the SRP to determine if DSE was actually used. For my VMAX2 arrays I can see this under the Performance tab where I can chart the DSE pool utilization (% full). For VMAX3 I haven't been able to find a similar setting.
KW160
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February 17th, 2017 09:00
You should be able to see the DSE capacity in use with this command:
symcfg -sid xxx list -srp -detail -v
Allen Ward
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February 17th, 2017 09:00
Thanks for that, but it only let's me know if DSE is in use at the exact moment I issue the command. I'm looking for a way to see if DSE was used in the past day or week or so. Normally I could get that out of a performance chart in UfV.
zzanne
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February 17th, 2017 09:00
Current use also is available in U4V in the dashboard. In the SRP section in the middle, just change the dropdown to SRDF DSE Allocated.
You can see *some* history in U4V, but my screen doesn't quite have the options the help tells me about.
I can see tracks used per storage group and adjust the time frame. My copy/paste does not work in the web so hopefully I type this right.
Performance Mgmt > Anaylze view > Trending and Planning - Views > Trending and Planning - Data Protection > DSE Pools view (Trending and Planning).
I don't have DSE Pools, but I have SRDFA which shows me tracks used.
Hope that helps a bit.
Allen Ward
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February 21st, 2017 07:00
I found it. I was looking for something specifically calling out DSE. Not to find it buried in another set of metrics.
mscheuer
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July 31st, 2017 14:00
What metrics did you find?
Allen Ward
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August 22nd, 2017 12:00
Under Performance Charts you can find the DSE usage per RDFA group. So technically you can select all groups for a timeframe and chart the DSE track usage. That will let you see if it got used. But you may have to do some math if multiple RDFGs dipped into it to determine if you have enough to manage spikes over multiple groups. I was hoping to find a single metric for DSE in general that would show how heavily it got used overall.