Ask the Expert: Transactional NAS and Next Generation VNX

This discussion is now open. We look forward to a fun, interactive and informative discussion.

Regards,

Mark

My questions for the expert session:

- How does performance (i.e. responstime) benefit if file is an additional layer on top of block?

- How can we manage mixed I/O profiles? (DB, VDI, Office) Can filepools be shared for different workloads?

- How can we assure single-stream-sequential-bandwith-apps with guanteed MB/sec in mixed enviroments?

- How to size storage, memory and protocols?

- How can a transactional db with a app which needs a guaranteed low responstime survive a VNX2 datamover failure? What are the minimum failover times for datamovers in VNX2?

- How to backup DB/VMware environments on file efficiently?

Why should we attend IOPS enanchments and very low latency on NAS from MCx ?? What are technical benfits ??

Transactional applications like VMware or databases running on VMware typically require low response time. Traditionally these applications used to run on block. As performance (IOPS and response time) and availability of NAS gets better - more customers would move their transactional applications (at least the ones which do not require the best IOPS/response time) to run on NAS.

JP - Thanks for the feedback. Here is my response to the questions you posted ...

1. Our file response time for VM workloads is 60% faster with the new VNX.

2. Yes file pools can be shared between different workloads

3. Unfortunately there is no way to guarantee performance today. We are looking at QoS for a future release.

4. We have tools that help with sizing (VNX sizer as an example)

5. VNX DM failover time can be less than 30 secs to up to 90 secs for small-medium number of file systems. In a VMware environment - typically the number of file systems is not very high (each fs maps to a VM data store).

6. RM and AppSync supports VM consistent snaps of the entire NFS data store. You can then backup the snap, or keep the snaps around and use the snap as the first line of defense. We support up to 96 snaps per NFS data store. 

There are a bunch of features in VNX OE 8 --- and more are planned in 2014. For example, VDMs is an area we have made enhancements and will continue to enhance through 2014.

Good way to learn new things

i looked at 8.1 release notes and i did not see "a bunch of new features"

Hi

What is Your reccomendation for setting up storage on the Next gen VNX using NFS for Vmware.

Tiering

lun sizing

thin on the Array or let Vmware do the thin provisioning

It all depends on the environment and application you are using with VMware. For a generic private cloud implementation, you can use FAST Tiering and array based thin provisioning. Refer to the VSPEX Reference Architecture for Private Cloud for more details.

It depends on what you are looking at. Happy to go over our file features and roadmap with you.

This discussion has now concluded. Thanks to our experts and all who participated!

• Continue the discussions in the VNX Support Forum and Unified Storage Connect Communities
• For technical support for your VNX, visit the EMC Online Support site. Also check out this blog post about a new tool on VNX Support by Product pages called MyDocs
• Interested in purchasing a next-generation VNX? Head to the EMC Store

Thanks!

Thanks Steff, for organizing this event, I just missed it.