Controller and software for DAE4P Enclosures

Refer to KB emc154373 "Which type of Disk Array Enclosure (DAE) can be used in CX4-Series, CX3-Series, and CX-Series storage systems?" https://support.emc.com/kb/40773 (requires Powerlink account), CX3 supports DAE4P enclosure (DAE4P = DAE3P).

Then you can visit CX3 support site (http://corpusweb130.emc.com/upd_prod_CX3/, free) to create customized step-by-step instructions guide to add these DAEs to your CX3-40:

CX3 has its own management console (Navisphere GUI), you can point your browser to its SP's IP address. If you don't know its IP or admin password, please refer to https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-12818 to recover it.

To map the disks to vSphere, please read the whitepaper : EMC CLARiiON Integration with VMware ESX

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h1416-emc-clariion-intgtn-vmware-wp.pdf (free)

Thanks for the help. Also, is it possible to install unisphere on the cx3-40c. I know I might have to upgrade Flare but does the controller support it and how would I be able to get the update packages?

If the array’s FLARE version is 30.xx, then Unisphere will be on the array. You can also run Unisphere Client on a Windows workstation and connect to the array that way, even if the FLARE version is >30.

Getting the packages will be difficult at best without access to EMC Support.

Hi,

Unisphere is supported only from CX4 Models of CLARiiON. But you can download Unisphere Client from EMC Online Support, which gives you a Unisphere interface to manage CX3 models of CLARiiON.

Thanks

Madhusudan

After reading through the documentation, a lot of the setup procedures require tools and utilities from support.emc.com which I assume is the same as powerlink. Is there anyway I can procede to setup this array by acquiring tools such as Unisphere Service Manager and Unisphere Client/Server without an active Powerlink account?

Thanks for all the help. After reading through the documentation I believe I have figured what would work in my situation:

1. Keeping the current version of Flare on the CX-40c, establish a direct connection to the controller and reset IP, username and Domain settings on each storage processor.

2. Login to the Navisphere UI (it is embedded in the SP right? I don't have to install it separately?) and configure the contoller to accept the 4 FC enclosures (still not exactly sure how to accomplish this without USM)

3. Add the 4 enclosures each with 15x 500gb 7.2k FC drives - total raw capacity 30TB

4. Configure storage pools and Raid with Navisphere UI as well as LUNs to be mapped.

5. From vCenter Map the shared storage to the vSphere 5.1 hosts

6. On a separate windows physical machine directly connected to array, install Unisphere server and Client. Manage the CX3 with the Unisphere client (The CX3 series can be managed with unisphere Client correct?)

Does this sound correct?

Thoughts of Concern:

I have read in various places that resetting the IP/Username/Domain settings does not clear the previous raid and LUN configurations and that a reinstall of FLARE is required. Is this true? If so, I have no way to do that without access to FLARE software. Is there any other way to completely clear the array? Also I keep seeing that in a full CX3 System the first 4 drives are reserved for FLARE/Array configuration. I would not need to install anything in my case onto drive 1-4 in the first DAE right? If so what would it be and how could I acquire it? 

Finally the CX3 is no where to be seen on the vSphere 5.1 HCL. Does that mean it wont map the drives. This array wont be used in production just a test cluster (still I don't want to have the array become unreadable and potentially lose data due to some compatibility issue). Is anyone using vSphere 5.1 and a CX3 system. Does it work and are there any performance issues.

If everything above checks out I will go ahead and setup the array as I stated. I just want to make sure I cover all the basis so that I don't end up half way in and find out its not possible without some powerlink software package. Again really appreciate your help.

I just registered a new account without binding any EMC products.

And with this account I can successfully download USM as well as the host connectivity guide. You should be able to download other guides, too. So just follow the official guides and get things done.

To avoid any mistaken operation, there is no "reset" button to reset a CX box to factory default settings, you need to delete LUNs, Pools/RAID groups manually, de-register hosts, etc. Re-imaging or upgrading FLARE code requires EMC-certified engineers or partners, it's really difficult for you to do this without their support.

Yes, CX3 is not officialy supported with vSphere 5.x. But we do find many customers are using it in ESX 5.x environment.

Cosonok's IT Blog: Implementing VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.1 with a CLARiiON CX3 and CX4 SAN

CX3-40f Performance on ESXi 5.1 | VMware Communities

EMC Clariion CX3-10c vSphere 5.1

Fresh esxi 5.0 and vcenter setup with FC and CX3 array

CX3-20F and esxi path selection

Since it's not officialy supported so no one can guarantee the performance. But it should be good enough to a test environment.