Tk,

At this stage SMC can do pretty much everything that CLI can do.  I am CLI advocate, however I do use SMC extensively and am using it more and more as I get used to it; I tend to use SMC for config tasks such as provisioning of storage, creating devices, configuring Thin Pools etc.

If I am doing replication tasks e.g. RDF, Timefinder etc I still tend to use the CLI;  I like the text based outputs of the cli rather than the GUI;  Plus this sort of work I can do quicker from command line.

The main advantage in my opinion of CLI over SMC is that you can script tasks to be done automatically with CLI; This is handy if you want to run your TF backups at 3am with a cron job.

There are pro's and cons to both;  I would always recommend that users familiarise themselves with both as the GUI makes things easier users still need to know what is going on under the covers..

Just to echo Pauls comments.  We have a V-Max and other Symmetrix arrays and use both SMC and Symcli.  With the V-max we use thin pools and creating them is incredibly easy with SMC; config changes are lightning quick as well.  Symmetrix masking is also very simple.  By implementing SMC we have been able to expand the number of people on our storage team that can do work on our Symmetrix arrays where we had some that were only comfortable with Clariions.

i feel like when i provision via cli i take greater care to check everything, make sure devices are not in-use, they have correct emulation, device status ..etc. It might take me a couple of minutes longer to provision with cli vs SMC but i feel like i have better understanding what i am doing instead of just clicking through painfully slow SMC screens. Personal opinion

There are some differences other than Storage Templates. Replication Monitor features are not available via SYMCLI.

Not every SYMCLI command has been implemented in SMC. examples include symhost,syminq and SRM mapping commands

SRDF/Star operations are not available at this time in SMC

The link below has the release notes for SMC with features and limitations

As most above have mentioned though, it comes down to personal preference, and the capacity in which you are planning

to use either SMC or SYMCLI. I would say that SMC complements SYMCLI, in that it can be easier to use for monitoring,

checking audit logs, and can be much quicker for auto provisioning, but i'm sure all would agree it is not a replacement for SYMCLI.

Hope the link helps.

http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/Technical_Documentation/300-009-590_a02.pdf