Ask the Expert: Deploy EMC Software-Defined Storage for Data Protection-as-a-Service and Better Performance

Good day and welcome to our Ask the Expert event about storage automation and management for achieving as-a-service offerings like data protection-as-a-service—and optimal application performance. Over the next ten days our flash, SDS, and hybrid cloud experts will be engaging in conversation about EMC technologies pushing the boundaries in these areas and answering your questions.

Let’s get started.

Flash and hybrid-flash arrays offer high-performance storage and with hybrid, the option to service application needs at costs that make sense.

Experts: How does ViPR Controller support flash and hybrid-flash storage?

ViPR controller allows you to pool the resources from hybrid flash storage systems or all flash storage systems and create classes of storage service for storage consumption. The application admin/end user does not have to worry whether the storage is backed by flash or hybrid. ViPR surfaces the unique capabilities of the underlying array to then define virtual storage pools using them.

The new ViPR controller 2.2 enables administrators to leverage new service level objective based provisioning in VMAX3. VMAX3 is the hybrid array which hides the complexity of disk types, drive types etc. by providing a set of SLO based on the response time. ViPR controller allows these SLOs to be surfaced into policy based virtual storage pools along with other attributes such as data protection through Timefinder which can be delivered to end users to meet their application needs. They can also move from one service level to another based on their evolving response time needs and cost tradeoffs. Additionally ViPR controller also supports high performance XtremIO (all flash) storage allowing similar abstraction to be created for these arrays.

Extending storage automation and provisioning to flash arrays certainly opens up new possibilities. How can an organization take advantage of this automation to improve efficiencies?

ViPR SRM can help users make the most efficient, cost-effective use of Flash-based storage, such as XtremIO or VMAX3.  Performance trends and performance alerts (greatly enhanced in ViPR SRM 3.6) can help identify, remediate, and even head-off, performance problems, by assisting the user in making data placement decisions that take advantage of Flash. Additionally, ViPR SRM automates service-level discovery and provides chargeback reports, in order to align the cost of service delivery with business requirements.   And new support in ViPR SRM 3.6 extends automated service-level discovery and chargeback reporting to VMAX3 service-level objectives (SLOs).

If you’re in need of an understanding of EMC's software-defined storage, please check out this new EMC Software-Defined Storage Overview whiteboard video.

While flash is important, customers still have legacy storage—and lots of it. What does ViPR Controller do for pre- provisioned environments?

Can VIPR provision CIFS Shares with SMB3 CA enabled ?

WIth ViPR Controller 2.2, you can now manage provisioned volumes exported to hosts for VMAX and VNX into ViPR management. What that means is that all ongoing management of those volumes such as delete, unexport, snapshot or changing class of storage ( add VPLEX, RP, SRDF etc) can happen through ViPR. ViPR will reuse the existing constructs while exporting new volumes to hosts with existing storage.

For EMC and third-party storage, organizations can realize up to a 73% reduction in storage provisioning costs with ViPR Controller. These savings apply to VMAX and VNX and other EMC storage, as well as third-party storage (e.g. NetApp, HDS). Read about it in the new Reducing Operating Expense with EMC ViPR Controller and ViPR SRM test report by Principled Technologies (page 9).

Yes ViPR can provision CIFS shares ( refer to support matrix for file arrays supported). We do not specify the protocol. the code is version agnostic.

Each ViPR release seems to have support for more storage. Last time it was native support for HDS and support for many arrays via OpenStack Cinder. What’s new this time?

Mona Copeland did a nice write up on the new support ViPR Controller 2.2 has for VCE Vblock converged infrastructure.   Check out her post here on the community.

Data protection-as-a-service is a logical follow-on to delivering Storage-as-a-service. Data—and applications—need to be protected. It looks this concept is getting further implemented with Software-Defined Storage. How does the new VPLEX MetroPoint support in the release work? What are the benefits in getting to data protection-as-a-service?

Administrators can now use ViPR Controller to automate protection of their most critical applications with MetroPoint topology using EMC VPLEX Metro continuous availability for both metro sites and EMC RecoverPoint CRR (remote replication) for the third disaster recovery (DR) site. Optinally for added protection, customers can add RecoverPoint CDP protection on both metro legs allowing them more granular operational recovery options. Additionally, ViPR now automates the migration of a VPLEX Metro and RecoverPoint three- site configuration to MetroPoint topology in a non-disruptive manner.