VNX to VNXe Replication

Unfortunately the array based block replication technologies are not unified to the extent that you can do this yet.  The VNXe iSCSI implementation is based on the technology from the Celerra family of products and is not, as far as I know, compatible with the iSCSI replication technology on the VNX - which is based on technology from the Clariion family of products.

In a shared file system scenario (CIFS/NFS) the VNX and VNXe products can share a replication connection, but for the block protocols there is still work to be done.

I hope this helps.

John Moran

EMC Solutions Group

Paul,

Those are good points - ones that I can't really speak on.  I don't have sufficient visibility into roadmap items and product plans to make any statements here.

Hopefully someone else watching this area can chime in.

John

Pretty disappointed that products in the same family have limited replication capability. This is where Netapp really shines since no matter what size platform, once your running the same version on ONTAP, you can replicate block and file under one hood. This is where EMC needs to go to be competitive in the mid tier space as Clariions start to disappear.

Unfortunately my manager tied up with a million other things tried to hit a price point with the VNXe not asking the right question about replication capabilities....It trully is a re-packaged Celerra it seems.

Can VPLEX provide an alternate workaround? We are running over dark very short distance. Of course spending half a million bucks to retrofit a 65k VNXe purchase isn't exactly the recommendation of someone who wants to stay employed, but at least we might know our options.

no problem John

I was just thinking it was too sensitive to put up in a forum either way

off to the trusted EMC Partner manager for info :-)

Regards

Paul

Was this purchase already made? Or is it a proposed solution?

Richard J Anderson

Hi Giograves

possibly recoverpoint might be a cheaper solution for your prediciment, not sure if its supported i believe it is but you would have to check and it should be cheaper than VPLEX

i agree with your points, nothing UNIFIED about block replicating between the VNX and VNXe :-(

Hopefully they will remedy this soon

Hi John

          Do EMC intend to design a solution where the VNX can replicate to the VNXe over iscsi ? it would be of great advantage cost wise to be able to replicate from the VNX to the lower cost Vnxe over Iscsi. I'm suprised EMC would have come up with some solution to this instead of saying just "not supported yet". i have seen this question asked quite a few times on the forums. If there is no plan to support this you should maybe think about changing the vnxe name as it misleads in a way as peoplke think its the same family and all replications will work between them

Also any work or the stoarge pool "re balance" functionallity when you add additional drives to a pool ?

Thanks

Paul

It is possible to replicate iSCSI LUNs from VNX to VNXe.  The replication sessions between VNX and VNXe are based on the RepV2 technology.  The RepV2 technology has been the core replication technology for the Celerra based products and has been carried over to the VNXe product. 

There are limitations with this configuration including the requirement of using File (DART) iSCSI LUNs on the VNX. Please talk to your account representative for additional details.

VNXe 3300 is already purchased. A VNX 5000 purchase is at the design phase.

According to mpgordon, I'd have to purchase the x-blades/"celerra" component of the VNX to be able to do block VNX-VNXe repl.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) we are FC and the prospect of buying addtional "controllers" for "file" isnt that compelling.

I will talk to our rep.

Thanks all.

For the VNX5x00, you can order it as Unified instead of Block-Only, which will give you the iSCSI via Datamover capability you need. It will all still be a single system/single serial#/single GUI.

Before you plan on all of that however, make sure you run the final config by your EMC Technology Consultant (aka SE) to verify support for your expected environment/applications/etc. Also, I believe replicating iSCSI between VNXe and VNX requires an RPQ for tracking purposes.

Richard J Anderson

I wanted to make two points regarding the scenario with replication of iSCSI LUNs between VNXe and VNX (via datamovers)

1) Firstly, with or without replication, an RPQ is required if presenting iSCSI LUNs via the datamovers of the VNX

Even then, management of the iSCSI LUNs (via the VNX datamovers) can only be performed via CLI as the Unisphere v1.1 GUI only provides management of iSCSI LUNs presented via the SP ports (block).

2) Replication Manager is required if replicating iSCSI LUNs between VNXe and VNX (via datamovers) once approved.