Ask the Expert: Whats new in VMAX

This discussion is open for questions. We look forward to a lively and informative event.

Best regards,

Roberto

Hi Team,

I want to know "how Hypermax OS is different than the earlier OE/OS" (what extra does it have to offer to users/customers) ?

Thanks

Rakesh

Rakesh,

First of all, thanks for asking the first question on this forum.  We are looking forward to sharing some of the excitement about the new VMAX release.

To answer you question there are a number of differences between Hypermax OS and its predecessor: Enginuity.  At a high level here are some of the differences:

• Architectural changes: among the changes that will help customers are the elimination of meta devices and thick devices.  Both of these changes will simplify management of the array as well as increasing a number of metrics like supported device counts and system capacity.   The primary focus of these changes is simplifying the management of a VMAX.
• New Feature functionality: the new software architecture provides VMAX with the ability to add a number of cool, differentiated capabilities such as Dynamic Virtual Matrix (DVM), SLO Provisioning and the Data Services Hypervisor.  The initial release of DVM allows Front and Back End Cores to be pooled together to insure overloaded ports receive as many resources as they require to keep the array running optimally.  SLO Provisioning allows customers to determine the relative priority of the various workloads running on the array so they get an appropriate amount of resources given their priority.   The Data Services Hypervisor will embed complementary storage technologies onto the VMAX, reducing the server footprint required to run these capabilities as well as providing VMAX level High Availability.

This is just a sampling of the changes that are available at Generally Available timeframe and beyond.   Your local team can help educate you on any additional details you need and they can pull in any SME's as required.

Thanks.

Tom O'Neill, VMAX Product Management

Thank You for answering it.

Thanks Rakesh

Hi Alexander,

For VMAX3 we have gone to Native SAS 6Gbs BE.

Best,

Paul

Hello Expert Team!

What about back-end at VMAX3? Is it still FC? Or there are 4x6 Gbit SAS lines like at VNX?

As far as I know there were SAS drives at VMAX 10/20/40k, but also there was small converter SAS-to-FC on each drive because of FC back-end.

And one more question.

Does it support Unishpere for VMAX only? What about legacy SMC?

Regards, Alexander.

Alexander,

And to answer your question about SMC and Unisphere, you'll need to run Unisphere for VMAX for the VMAX3 platform.  Unisphere will continue to support the currently shipping VMAX arrays plus the new one while SMC only supports currently shipping arrays.

Thanks.

Tom O'Neill

You wrote: The initial release of DVM allows Front and Back End Cores to be pooled together to insure overloaded ports receive as many resources as they require to keep the array running optimally.

Does it mean that any front-end port can be serviced by any Core any CPU? Are there no any "hard binding" betwenn ports and cpu`s?

Where can I find more information about DVM?

Thanks.

Alexander,

You've got it.   There is no "hard binding" between Ports and CPUs, instead there is a Front End and a Back End CPU pool that can be used by whichever Port needs it.  This obviously has a lot of benefits.

We're still putting together the collateral together for the entire array feature set.   Stay tuned for something that is more polished than my answer.

Thanks.

Tom O

Hi Tom,

Is it (Unisphere) with new architecture or some more features got added and what is the version, if existing ones ?

Thanx

Rakesh

so how many 6 Gb lanes in each SAS connection? As Alkhvo asked and stated, the VNX has a 4 lane 6 Gb SAS connection, so the BE ports on the storage processors can handle 4 x 6 = 24 Gbps. How about the VMAX3?

Hi.

Can I reuse somehow my old VMAXes by virtualizing them under a new VMAX3?

What about other vendors systems, can they be virtualized under VMAX3 and integrated on the service levels provision system ?

Thanks!

I would assume that just about any "old" storage array van be virtualized, right?

Well, I assume the support will be restricted to a limited list of devices, due to testing limitations. "Any old storage array" is... a lot ;-)

Hi,

VMAX3 has implemented the same BE approach as described below for VNX.

Best,

Paul