Ask the Expert: EMC Symmetrix VMAX - Latest Advancements

This feature does not change the binding of tdevs, but enhances where new writes are allocated.

There are two potential benefits:

First, data allocated from the bound pool may be promoted or demoted shortly after the allocation, which causes an additional movement of data on the back end. FAST improved this by allocating new writes in the appropriate pool with optimized performance, instead of allocating new writes in the bound pool regardlessly.

Second, the new feature could prevent new write failure should the bound pool fill up.

Let me know if this helps.

Hi Paul,

I clarify with user about his question. Based on his response, user perfer to want to know any Virtual Provisioning Enhancements in new enginuity. As User's current use the DMX, He is very interested in VMAX

PaulDLorusso 编写: Fenglin, Hi--we would like to respond to your inquiry, but we wanted to be sure we clearly understood the context of your question.  Could you please clarify reference to "support of disk pool as a default", as contrasted to your reference of diks groups?  We weren't 100% clear on what you were asking here, and we want to be sure in order to give you an accurate response.  Any additional data you can supply, including where you saw other references to support of disk pool as default as opposed to diks group would be most helpful. Best Regards, Paul

Hi Folks... About the roadmap...

Any plans for Primary Deduplication and/or Compression into VMAX series?

Best Regards,

Arthur R Oliveira

Dancheng,

"FAST improved this by allocating new writes in the appropriate pool..."

So does this benefit change the reported thin pool allocation percentages?

Arthur,

This new Enginuity release (5876 Q4 2012 SR) adds primary data compression to all VMAX models! It's designed to compress cold (idle) data that hasn't been touched recently.  For roadmap discussions, please contact your EMC partner or sales team.

arthurol wrote: Hi Folks... About the roadmap... Any plans for Primary Deduplication and/or Compression into VMAX series? Best Regards, Arthur R Oliveira

Yes. A new write should change the reported thin pool allocation percentages.

Hi Fenglin,

There have been a number of Virtual Provisioning Enhancements to the latest version of Enginuity.  Among these are:

1. Federated Tier Storage (FTS) is now supported as a fourth FAST VP tier, allowing virtualization of selected external vendor arrays

2.  Of course FAST VP itself was introduced last May for all VMAX virtually provisioned platforms.

3.  VP Snaps introduced clone technology to Virtually provisioned volumes

4.  VP Compression (a manual compression capability for virtually provisioned volumes) and FAST VP compression (an automated compression algorithm for virtually provisioned volumes) was added.

More information on all of these features can be found on Powerlink and/or the VMAX family product guides.

To clarify my previous response: when a new allocation is made using the VP Allocation by Policy feature, the allocation will be reported against the pool in which the new allocation was made. So if the tdev is bound to the FC pool, but the new allocation comes from the EFD pool, the allocation percentage for the EFD pool will increase.

Hello everyone,

We've got a customer that is using mid to high-end VNX systems. A couple of months ago they have expressed the need to implement two-factor authentication. Unfortunately the VNX systems do not support this.

Does a VMAX support two-factor authentication, preferably using RSA SecurID?

Thanks!

Jon

just a (probably silly) question: do you mean HBA security where the array checks whether an HBA is allowed to contact an FA port and uses this authentication process to actually gain access to the FA?

This Ask the Expert event has now concluded, but the conversation continues on the Symmetrix support forum. Quick note, our Experts are following up on the final questions and will post responses shortly.

Please feel free to continue this discussion. Other subject matter experts on VMAX 10K are welcome to post their thoughts and experiences on the topics. Thank you to all those who participated in this event!

Jon, Yes VMAX supports two-factor authentication with RSA Secure ID if you integrate the VMAX authentication with LDAP. This assumes your LDAP system uses two-factor authentication.

Thanks John, that's good to hear!

Any plans for your new datacenter at home?