Now that I have the storage in place and turned on, the planning of just how to cut it up can begin.  Because we are an all Windows shop, CIFS will be the method of choice for file systems.  I will likely keep a small section of disk for iSCSI just for opportunities sake.

What now?

Next comes moving the existing data to the Celerra.  This is where I am currently planning and determining how to proceed.  The goal of this series is to look at a few of the tools available to help with data migration and some of the planning that might go with moving data.

As this moves forward I will discuss planning of a migration and what you might consider when looking to migrate data as well as a few of the tools available to accomplish a migration.

Because things are still coming together for these posts, if there are things you want to see or know about, please let me know.

© derek for Gestalt IT, 2011. | Storage Migration Tools: A look at what’s around
Read more posts categorized as Storage

Because the unit is new and I decided to get it setup all by myself, asking questions where needed, some things are not as rosy as I had hoped they would be.  The biggest issue I have right now is domain joins.  It seems they fail all the time. I am working on this issue and hope to have it resolved this week.

The next issue that finds me a bit troubled is migration.  Sure there is copy and paste, but that smells of inefficiency to me.  I am trying to chase down some of the migration tools I have read about but the EMC-Copy utility doesn’t seem to get the job done (or I am using it wrong).

If all goes well, the users will be presented with the new storage in a week or so and then it is on to home directory “stuff”.

To move or let them move… that is the question

I am on the fence when it comes to Home Directories.  Yes we need them, yes they need to live on the Celerra, but who gets to be the one to put them there.  My initial thought was to shove all the data over in a migration and not worry about it, but that is not effective use of storage.  Keeping whatever is out there for as long as whenever is not a good move.  I am planning to e-mail the user community and let them know that they need to clean up their rooms by <insert deadline here> so that the useable data can be migrated.

This will save initial storage at the outset and allow everyone to be under their quota.  Users under quota are a good thing, because that way the hard limit wont hit right away and can actually be enforced.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

I am leaning toward a set amount of storage per user, across the board.  This means that my co-workers need to reduce what is stored.  That should make for an interesting few weeks.  Some will have no problem as they do not use much now, some will have limit issues right away.

Either way, I think that will suit us best until we can determine needs and usage to allow additional shelves to be installed.

© derek for Gestalt IT, 2011. | Getting acquainted with storage
Read more posts categorized as All, Storage

It is not to say that there was no planning ahead, we did also purchase some HP Proliant DL 380 G7s for the upcoming virtualization of server workloads, but given the amount of disk we are consuming just for files (non-deduped files at this point) the opportunity to tackle everything at once is thankfully in no way possible.

Data growth will happen

I like to think I am a realist when it comes to my job.  Sure it is cool to have the latest greatest infrastructure, but if the gear in place today is getting the job done why change?  We are storing our information on a Windows Storage Server appliance with direct attached disk configured for hardware RAID 5.  The useable storage available in total is about 675 GB, which isnt too bad considering that we have used about half of that disk space over the five year life of the device.

Some users, consume way more than they should and all have a surely plausible business reason for their usage.  Because there havent been huge spikes in the growth in other areas, this is ok.  Until the data begins to saunter across the Ethernet to the NX4.  When it arrives, there will be limits in place for the user and deduping going on to help the limits be realistic.

Sure we went to the current storage server because I needed some type of disk space in a hurry on the cheap, but it was admittedly poorly thought out because it requires forklifting to grow the storage.  Because more data is being consumed and many end users assume that IT is in charge of what they consume, many things, even those from 2001 need never die. While this might be true, it isnt practical, especially in a small business.  Keeping old data forever because it has never been thought to clean it out is just bad management.  Both by me, the storage admin, and the user.

Because of this, capping or quotas or <insert limit buzz word here> will happen when we transition.  Sure there will be exceptions, but certainly not for backups of itunes libraries and photo albums.

Figuring out what is reasonable

Determining accurate growth certainly is a science and plain dumb luck.  Because we have had our current file server for five or so years and have just passed the half way mark 20% growth is more than reasonable.  I didnt hire a crack team of scientists to determine this, I purely looked at current use versus total available to see what would be left over.  Then tried to find a target quota amount for the users home directories.

Some users will be giving up some disk space, but I think this is good for everyone.  Sure we can get more shelves and we likely will in the future, but slowing the growth to a trickle is something that will hopefully get people to be more mindful of what they keep.  If the newest Justin Bieber CD in the itunes library wont fit because you havent the space to keep it, should you cull your library or store you collection elsewhere, or remove data needed to do your job?  I think the choice is obvious and can recommend great small form factor disks for iTunes storage, but it is ultimately up to the user (or their supervisor) to ensure they store the correct information.

I think the move to scalable storage was definitely correct for this situation because data needs will only get more complex as the world moves forward and with virtualization becoming more and more popular, the savings brought about by “less with more” or at least less compute space for more compute power will be very well worth the slight bit of upfront and transition costs incurred by SMB.

Changing over to SAN storage was a very big shift for the business side of the house, especially since they have not started using this hot new thing as of yet.  When planning our storage needs, I was concerned with growth, but included server consolidation to reduce the amount of servers (read “four letter words”) that were in the data center (back room closet).  Doing this seemed to appeal to everyone, even though we are quite a ways out from actually virtualizing any workloads.

What now? The discussion begins

There was a lot of prep work that went into getting the new equipment ordered and there will be a lot more work in ensuring it works to meet the needs of the users now and in the future.  I expect it will grow considerably much sooner than the business side will anticipate, but when it does, the long term savings on power and other areas will be well worth the initial investment.

Implementing guidelines to help users make better decisions about what they keep and where they keep it might be a good move, at least for my organization.  It will help keep things that need to be kept and remove things (or store them for less time) that are not as important.  Some times things will get done to ensure (or at least try to ensure) timed growth, like quotas and deduping, and other things will be done with the direct involvement of the user and place the responsibility on them.

The best thing I have learned in preparing this new storage is that there is a good deal of work and consideration to do before letting the users loose on the thing once I get that far, or just before… I will have more to say here.

© derek for Gestalt IT, 2011. | Moving to a SAN and managing data growth
Read more posts categorized as All, Featured, Storage

Note: These instructions are being made using an EMC Celerra and Unisphere 1.0. Your SAN hardware experience may vary. So, as always, take this as an example and test in your test environment FIRST.

Stage 0 – Determine how much space you need

The mistake I made in calculating some of the space was that I missed a couple vswap files. Oops… So, now I need to expand the datastore by about 3 GB in order to Storage vMotion the VM into place and keep some room for snaps (and whatnot).

Now… it is worth noting that Celerra SANs work with file systems as the base storage level (the base place you can keep data). If you are hip to Unix/Linux environments, you know that when you format a file system, a portion of the storage is consumed by inodes (and other structures depending on the system). So, a 20GB partition is not necessarily 20GB usable. By default, the Celerra is taking 2% of the disk space for whatever it wants.

Note – I am not an EMC guy, so there may be ways to tweak this. That’s cool.

Recall that I need 3GB extra (which would make it a 23GB file system). Extending by 3GB would leave me with 22.6GB usable (again, recall 2% overhead). Extending by 4GB, though, leaves me with 23.6GB usable (377.0MB overhead). So, 4GB it is!

Stage 1 – Extend the file system

Open the Unisphere Client and browse to the file systems. Locate the file system you are looking for.

Right-click and select “Extend”

So… now that we know we need to add 4GB, we just need to do some quick math because the Extend function wants sizes in MB. 1024MB/GB * 3GB = 4096MB. Plug “4096” into “Extend Size by (MB):” field and click OK.

Now Unisphere is showing that the file system has been extended. Pretty cool, huh!?

Stage 2 – Extend the iSCSI Share

Part of setting up the iSCSI access to a file system requires you to define how much of the file system will be used by the iSCSI access. Initially, I wanted all of the space to be used by iSCSI. So, I told the Celerra to use all 20GB (or 19.7GB after the 2% overhead). Now, though, we are still using the 19.7GB even though we have the additional 3.9GB available.

To resolve the issue, we need to extend the iSCSI share to consume the rest of the space.

In the Unisphere client, browse over to Sharing –> iSCSI

Locate the LUN ID of the share you want to extend. For us, this is LUN #19. Right-click on the share and select “Extend”.

Notice that the size is showing 19.684GB. We’re going to change this now to include the new space we added.

This step contains a little inconsistency in the Unisphere UI that drives me crazy. Specifically, the rounding and display of significant digits. In the graphic above, you see that the iSCSI share is 19.684GB in size. However, notice in the next graphic that we can extend by 3.9GB. Hmmm… What do you want to bet that it is not quite 3.9GB!?

Instead of trying to figure out the exact size, in MB, that we want to extend by, there is a little trick we can employ. The UI catches incorrect sizes, throws and error, and then corrects the error by replacing the value with the largest value possible. So, I am going to enter 4096 into the field knowing that it will fail. However, it will correct my work for me (ah… so nice).

Click OK and extend away.

Now, the Unisphere UI will show that the iSCSI share has been extended.

Stage 3 – Extend the Datastore in vSphere

Even though we have done some pretty cool data storage extension, the vSphere environment is not showing that. Grrrr… Luckily, there is an easy fix for that.

Locate the proper datastore by selecting an ESX host, Configuration tab –> Storage. Right-click on the datastore and select the “Properties” option.

Next, select the “Increase” button

In the following window, you will see a selection of the available devices that we can select to become an extent to the file system. Low and behold, the same LUN #19 has appeared (recall that the iSCSI LUN for the file system was #19!

Select that LUN and click Next.

Magically, vSphere knows exactly what to do with it.

vSphere sees that there is an additional 3.94GB of space available and that the ‘Free space’ will be used to expand the VMFS volume. Click Next!

Click Next to “Maximize capacity”.

Click Finish to begin the magic.

In a mere 6 seconds (for me), the VMFS datastore has been expanded and is available to use.

As a nice aside, this feature will also initiate a Storage Rescan of all ESX hosts connected to the datastore to ensure the change has been reflected everywhere.

Stage 4 – vPat-Yourself-On-The-Back

This procedure to extend a VMFS datastore is super easy. Again, different SAN vendors may have different utilities and procedures for enlarging an iSCSI share on the fly. So, make sure to do you research on the procedure. However, this should go to show that it can be super easy and any VMs running on the store will have little/no impact.

© Bill for Gestalt IT, 2010. | vSphere – Extending VMFS Datastore–Live (With Unisphere)
Read more posts categorized as Server Virtualization

Lots of people will be quick to point out to me that Netapp sell lots of products.  Well, yes they do and the majority of those relate to a single core product – Data ONTAP running on some kind of bespoke hardware.  There are a few other bits and pieces out there – DataFort and SANScreen for example, but most software and hardware products still revolve around the core function of providing Networked Attached Storage.

Two thoughts intrigue me:

• Despite Netapp’s “reputation”, people still continue to buy from them.  By “reputation” I mean, complexity and price – I won’t even mention the sales culture.
• Competition in the sector must surely mean that growth in the single NAS product can’t continue forever, when newer products that have been developed with the benefit of hindsight are available in the marketplace and those vendors become more established.

It’s the second of these points that probably concerns me most.  Data ONTAP has some technical issues in performance and scalability.  The time taken to develop Data ONTAP 8 has demonstrated that integrating new features into the existing code base is a time consuming and presumably expensive exercise.  Netapp have no other product line to rely on and aren’t introducing new hardware/software as successors to the existing product line.

Compare Netapp to other vendors, specifically their arch-nemesis EMC.  EMC have fundamentally re-invented storage array technology with the introduction of V-Max.  Over the years they invested in technology other than their main Symmetrix range; CLARiiON, Centera, Celerra, Iomega, RecoverPoint are only a few that spring to mind.  There are many more.  The software portfolio of technology unrelated to Symmetrix is even greater.  Netapp remain fixed on their core product platform and the Data ONTAP architecture, attempting to make one hardware device fit all flavours of storage.

Despite the apparent flaws in Netapp’s technology, customers continue to buy and that is reflected in continued growth.  But surely it’s just a matter of time before their market share begins to erode.  Perhaps rather than acquiring technology that further expands features of their current platform (like Data Domain) they should branch out and buy into technology in other areas by acquiring 3Par, Compellent or Pillar perhaps.  Of course the only problem with following this direction is that it admits defeat in using the existing Data ONTAP platform as an all-protocol encompassing storage platform.  When you’ve spend years criticising the competition, you’ve pretty much painted yourself into a corner that becomes very difficult to get out of.

© Chris for Gestalt IT, 2010. | NetApp: The $4 Billion Product
Read more posts categorized as Featured, Storage

Like Ibrix, which was acquired by HP under better circumstances last year, and ONstor, similarly scooped up by LSI, Exanet was best known for clustered NAS software. Their ExaStore software, bundled with IBM and Xyratex hardware, put up impressive scalability and performance numbers. Dell will likely leverage this software with their own hardware as a NAS complement to their leading EqualLogic iSCSI line. Exanet’s Xyratex-sourced DX line of Fibre Channel storage devices is unlikely to be at all attractive to Dell.

Rumors of a white knight for Exanet were widespread last year. Fujitsu Siemens Computers was said to be the front-runner in May, and Exanet’s name came up mid-year as HP and LSI made their moves. Dell was apparently willing to put up some money to gain access to Exanet’s NAS technology later in the year but the company’s investors reportedly scuttled that deal. Plan B for the folks in Round Rock seems to have been to wait it out and secure the technology from the now-moribund company. If Dell keeps the doors open, Exanet’s R&D center will become their first such facility in Israel.

The acquisition gives Dell a retort when HP presents their invigorated Ibrix line to enterprise customers. It is likely that Dell will follow HP with a software/hardware NAS bundle possibly featuring their PowerEdge blades. Back-end storage could come from many sources: Dell’s own PowerVault MD line, their EqualLogic PS iSCSI gear, or the Dell/EMC CLARiiON AX and CX lines. Exanet is known as a higher-end scale-out offering (think Isilon or HP’s PolyServe) rather than a general-purpose NAS.

Two key questions arise from Dell-owned NAS software:

1. Would Dell reduce their reliance on Microsoft’s Windows Storage Server, as used in their PowerVault NX300 and NX3000 NAS devices? I suspect not, since Exanet is not a low-end product and Windows-powered NAS has typically sold into a separate market niche. Rival HP has certainly continued pushing Microsoft-powered gear since buying Ibrix.
2. What does this mean for Dell’s relationship with EMC? The company only started selling the EMC Celerra NX4 last year, and a homegrown Exanet/PowerVault solution is not a drop-in replacement. Dell’s relationship with EMC continues getting deeper, and a split is unlikely in the near term.

At this point, this looks like a vote for Exanet’s technology and a reaction to HP’s PolyServe and Ibrix moves, not a statement against EMC or Celerra. Indeed, considering that Dell was merely investigating an OEM relationship before this all fell out, it doesn’t look like a strategic move at all for the company. Exanet will likely become a new line item, but Dell’s storage roster will look largely the same.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Dell Scoops Up Exanet After All
Read more posts categorized as Exclusive, Featured, Storage, Top Story

So EMC has proved critics like me wrong and have introduced EMC FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) as an offering in Dec 2009. There were many skeptics like me that saw this product release being stalled because of various reasons, here.

Truly this was one of the most awaited products of 2009 from EMC after the initial announcement by EMC back in April 2009 along with the release of Symmetrix V-Max.

I have dedicated a separate deep-dive section for EMC FAST on the StorageNerve Blog, here

Along with FAST, EMC has also introduced some new enhancements to the EMC Symmetrix V-Max, Clariion CX4 and Celerra NS platforms. Currently FAST will be available on the above 3 platforms at debut and will provide automated storage tiering “in-the-box” for Symmetrix V-Max, “in-the-box” for Clariion CX4 and “out-of-box” for Celerra NS platforms.

As expected EMC has not made this feature free but rather offers a pricing model based on bundled software. FAST will be an available feature within ATSM: Advanced Tiering Storage Management bundle and will be charged based on RAW Capacity of the Array (Symmetrix, Clariion and Celerra)

FAST will not be supported on EMC DMX-4 and Clariion CX3. In essence FAST is only compatible with EMC Symmetrix V-Max Enginuity Microcode 5874.xxx.xxx and Clariion CX4 Flarecode Release 29.

FAST is a software only feature and integrates with existing hardware / software on the associated platforms.

The following are some of the features FAST will support at GA on the EMC Symmetrix V-Max, Clariion CX4 and Celerra NS platforms.

EMC Symmetrix V-Max

• Volume / LUN based data movement (Automated Storage Tiering) for open systems and CKD – mainframe volumes.

• Management of FAST through Symmetrix Management Console or SymCLI

• Data Movement can be accomplished between FLASH, fibre channel and SATA drives within the V-Max platform. Data can move in any direction and on any type of the drives based on policy.

• Data movement within a single frame or serial number only.

• FAST suite can be purchased as a standalone software suite but will be available at a discounted price based on a bundled option with Symmetrix Optimizer, DCP: Dynamic Cache Partitioning and SPC: Symmetrix Priority Controls.

• Symmetrix Performance Analyzer is not required for FAST to operate on the Symmetrix V-Max platform.
  

EMC Clariion CX4

• LUN based data movement (Automated Storage Tiering)

• Management of FAST will be enabled through CLI only. Not supported as an integrated part of Navisphere today.

• Will work with Flarecode Release 29 (Clariion CX4) only.

• Unlike the Symmetrix, the automated data movement will only be supported between fibre channel drives to FLASH or fibre channel drives to SATA. There is no automation related to data movement from FLASH to fibre channel or FLASH to SATA or SATA to FLASH or SATA to fibre Channel drives.

• Data movement within a single frame or serial number only.

• FAST suite can be purchased as a standalone software suite but will be available at a discounted price based on bundled option with Navisphere Analyzer and NQSM: Navisphere Quality Service Manager.

• Navisphere Analyzer is required for FAST to operate.

EMC Celerra platform

• File based data movement (Automated Storage Tiering)

• Management of FAST can be accomplished through Rainfinity file management appliance GUI or CLI. Customers also have an option to purchase Rainfinity File management/VE (Virtual Appliance), which has some limitations.

• Data movement can be enabled to another tier “in-the-box” or to another Celerra or Centera or Atmos.

• Celerra FAST is most interesting as it enables out the system data movement, like to another Celerra or Centera or Atmos.

• FAST suite can be purchased as a standalone software suite but will be available at a discounted price based on a bundled option with Rainfinity File Management Appliance or Rainfinity File Management /VE.

Based on EMC heat index charts, a before and after picture of a FAST implementation would look like this.

A FAST implementation video

Here is a post, back from August 2009 on Gestalt IT describing how EMC’s Unified Storage vision and federation may work. It is good to see, some of those things come to fruition now, and at least FAST with Celerra proves it.

Stay tuned for a series of FAST posts over the next few days talking about various other topics and how FAST plays within those areas.

© Devang for Gestalt IT, 2009. | After all, FAST makes a debut
Read more posts categorized as Storage, Tech

So the journey of Symmetrix systems started with Moshe Yanai (along with his team) joining EMC in late 80’s. A floating story says, the idea of a cache based disk array was initially pitched to both IBM and HP and was shot down.  EMC was predominately a mainframe memory selling company back in the late 1980’s. The Symmetrix products completely changed the direction of EMC in a decade.

Joe Tucci comes in at the end of 90’s from Unisys with a big vision. Wanted to radically change EMC. Through new acquisitions, new technologies, vision and foremost the integration of all the technologies created today’s EMC.

Symmetrix has always been the jewel of EMC. Back in the Moshe days, the engineers were treated so royally (Have heard stories about helicopter rides and lavish parties with a satellite bus waiting outside for a support call). Then comes the Data General acquisition in late 90’s that completely changed the game.

Some people within EMC were against the DG acquisition and didn’t see much value in it. While the Clariion DG backplane is what changed the Symmetrix to a Symmetrix DMX – Fiber Based Drives. Over this past decade, EMC radically changes its position and focuses on acquisitions, support, products, quality, efficiency, usability and foremost changing itself from a hardware company to an Information Solutions company focusing on software as its integral growth factor.  New acquisitions like Legato, Documentum, RSA, kept on changing the culture and the growth focus within EMC.

Then came VMware and it changed the rules of the game, EMC’s strategic move to invest into VMware paid off big time.  Then happens the 3-way partnership between VMware – EMC – Cisco, to integrate next generation products, V-Max (Symmetrix), V-Sphere and UCS are born.

Here we are in 2009, almost at the end of 20 years since the inception of the Symmetrix, the name, the product, the Enginuity code, the robust characteristics, the investment from EMC all stays committed with changing market demands.

Jumping back into the Symmetrix, here are a few articles you might find interesting, overall talking about various models, serial numbers of the machines and importantly a post on Enginuity Operating Environment.

• To read about EMC Symmetrix Enginuity Operating Environment
• To read about EMC Symmetrix Serial Number naming convention,
• To read about EMC Symmetrix Models in a previous blog post
• To read about various EMC models based on different Platforms
• To read about all EMC Clariion models since the Data General Acquisition

Symmetrix Family 1.0

• ICDA – Integrated Cache Disk Array
• Released 1990 and sold through 1993
• A 24GB total disk space introduced

Wow, I was in elementary school or may be middle school when this first generation Symmetrix was released….

• Symmetrix 4200

Symmetrix Family 2.0

• ICDA – Integrated Cache Disk Array
• Released 1991 and sold through 1994
• A 36GB total disk space
• Mirroring introduced

• Symmetrix 4400

Symmetrix Family 2.5

• ICDA – Integrated Cache Disk Array
• Released 1992 and sold through 1995
• RSF capabilities added

(I actually met a guy about 2 years ago, he was one of the engineers that had worked on developing the first RSF capabilities at EMC and was very instrumental in developing the Hopkinton PSE lab)

• Symmetrix 4800:

Symmetrix Family 3.0 also called Symmetrix 3000 and 5000 Series

• Released 1994 and sold through 1997
• ICDA: Integrated Cache Disk Array
• Includes Mainframe Support (Bus & Tag)
• Global Cache introduced
• 1GB total Cache
• NDU – Microcode
• SRDF introduced
• Supports Mainframe and open systems both
• Enginuity microcode 50xx, 51xx

• Symmetrix 3100: Open systems support, half height cabinet, 5.25 inch drives
• Symmetrix 5100: Mainframe support, half height cabinet, 5.25 inch drives
• Symmetrix 3200: Open Systems support, single cabinet, 5.25 inch drives
• Symmetrix 5200: Mainframe support, single cabinet, 5.25 inch drives
• Symmetrix 3500: Open Systems support, triple cabinet, 5.25 inch drives
• Symmetrix 5500: Mainframe support, triple cabinet, 5.25 inch drives

Symmetrix Family 4.0 also called Symmetrix 3000 and 5000 Series

• Released 1997 and sold through 2000
• RAID XP introduced
• 3.5 Inch drive size introduced
• On triple cabinet systems 5.25 inch drives used
• Supports Mainframe and Open Systems both
• Timefinder, Powerpath, Ultra SCSI support
• Enginuity microcode 5265.xx.xx, 5266.xx.xx

• Symmetrix 3330: Open Systems Support, half height cabinet, 32 drives, 3.5 inch drives
• Symmetrix 5330: Mainframe Support, half height cabinet, 32 drives, 3.5 inch drives
• Symmetrix 3430: Open Systems Support, single frame, 96 drives, 3.5 inch drives
• Symmetrix 5430: Mainframe Support, single frame, 96 drives, 3.5 inch drives
• Symmetrix 3700: Open Systems Support, triple cabinet, 128 drives, 5.25 inch drives
• Symmetrix 5700: Mainframe Support, triple cabinet, 128 drives, 5.25 inch drives

To read about EMC Symmetrix Hardware Components

Symmetrix Family 4.8 also called Symmetrix 3000 and 5000 Series

• Released 1998 and sold through 2001
• Symmetrix Optimizer Introduced
• Best hardware so far: least outages, least problems and least failures (not sure if EMC will agree to it, most customers do)
• 3.5 inch drives used with all models
• Enginuity microcode 5265.xx.xx, 5266.xx.xx, 5267.xx.xx

• Symmetrix 3630: Open Systems support, half height cabinet, 32 drives
• Symmetrix 5630: Mainframe support, half height cabinet, 32 drives
• Symmetrix 3830: Open Systems support, single cabinet, 96 drives
• Symmetrix 5830: Mainframe support, single cabinet, 96 drives
• Symmetrix 3930: Open Systems support, triple cabinet, 256 drives
• Symmetrix 5930: Mainframe support, triple cabinet, 256 drives

Models sold as 3630-18, 3630-36, 3630-50, 5630-18, 5630-36, 5630-50,3830-36, 3830-50, 3830-73, 5830-36, 5830-50, 5830-73, 3930-36, 3930-50, 3930-73, 5930-36, 5930-50, 5930-73 (the last two digits indicate the drives installed in the frame)

To read about EMC Symmetrix Hardware Components

Symmetrix Family 5.0 also called Symmetrix 8000 Series

[ 3000 (open sytems) + 5000 (mainframe) = 8000 (support for both) ]

• Supports Open Systems and Mainframe without BUS and TAG through ESCON
• Released 2000 and sold through 2003
• 181GB Disk introduced
• Enginuity microcode 5567.xx.xx, 5568.xx.xx

• Symmetrix 8130: Slim cabinet, 48 drives
• Symmetrix 8430: Single cabinet, 96 drives
• Symmetrix 8730: Triple cabinet, 384 drives

Some models sold as 8430-36, 8430-73, 8430-181 or 8730-36, 8730-73, 8730-181 (the last two digits indicate the drives installed in the frame)

To read about EMC Symmetrix Hardware Components

Symmetrix Family 5.5 LVD also called Symmetrix 8000 Series

• Released 2001 and sold through 2004
• LVD: Low Voltage Disk Introduced
• 146GB LVD drive introduced
• Ultra SCSI drives cannot be used with the LVD frame
• Mainframe optimized machines introduced
• 4 Slice directors introduced with ESCON and FICON
• FICON introduced
• Enginuity microcode 5567.xx.xx, 5568.xx.xx

• Symmetrix 8230: Slim cabinet, 48 drives, (rebranded 8130, non lvd frame)
• Symmetrix 8530: Single cabinet, 96 drives, (rebranded 8430, non lvd frame)
• Symmetrix 8830: Triple cabinet, 384 drives, (rebranded 8730, non lvd frame)
• Symmetrix 8230 LVD: LVD frame, slim cabinet, 48 LVD drives
• Symmetrix 8530 LVD: LVD frame, single cabinet, 96 LVD drives
• Symmetrix 8830 LVD: LVD frame, triple cabinet, 384 LVD drives
• Symmetrix z-8530: LVD frame, Single cabinet, 96 drives, optimized for mainframes
• Symmetrix z-8830: LVD frame, Triple cabinet, 384 drives, optimized for mainframe

Some models sold as 8530-36, 8530-73, 8530-146, 8530-181 or 8830-36, 8830-73, 8830-146, 8830-181 (the last two digits indicate the drives installed in the frame)

To read about EMC Symmetrix Hardware Components

Symmetrix DMX or also called Symmetrix Family 6.0

• Released Feb 2003 and sold through 2006
• Direct Matrix Architecture (Data General Backplane) introduced
• DMX800 was the first DMX system introduced
• 4 Slice directors introduced
• RAID 5 introduced after being introduced on DMX-3
• First generation with common DA / FA hardware
• Introduction of modular power
• Enginuity Microcode 5669.xx.xx, 5670.xx.xx, 5671.xx.xx

• Symmetrix DMX800: Single cabinet, DAE based concept for drives, 96 drives (I swear, a customer told me, they have ghost like issues with their DMX800)
• Symmetrix DMX1000: Single cabinet, 18 drives per loop, 144 drives total
• Symmetrix DMX1000-P: Single cabinet, 9 drives per loop, 144 drives total, P= Performance System
• Symmetrix DMX2000: Dual cabinet, modular power, 18 drives per loop, 288 drives
• Symmetrix DMX2000-P: Dual cabinet, modular power, 9 drives per loop, 288 drives, P=Performance System
• Symmetrix DMX3000-3: Triple cabinet, modular power, 18 drives per loop, 3 phase power, 576 drives

To read about EMC Symmetrix DMX Hardware components

To read about EMC Symmetrix DMX models and major differences

Symmetrix DMX2 or also called Symmetrix Family 6.5

• Released Feb 2004 and sold through 2007
• Double the processing using DMX2
• DMX and DMX2 frames are same, only directors from DMX must be changed to upgrade to DMX2, reboot of entire systems required with this upgrade
• RAID 5 introduced after being introduced on DMX-3
• 64GB memory introduced
• 4 Slice Directors
• Enginuity Microcode 5669.xx.xx, 5670.xx.xx, 5671.xx.xx

• Symmetrix DMX801: 2^nd generation DMX, Single cabinet, DAE based concept for drives, 96 drives, FC SPE 2 (I swear, a customer told me, they have ghost like issues with their DMX800)
• Symmetrix DMX1000-M2: 2^nd generation DMX, Single cabinet, 18 drives per loop, 144 drives
• Symmetrix DMX1000-P2: 2^nd generation DMX, Single cabinet, 9 drives per loop, 144 drives, P=Performance System
• Symmetrix DMX2000-M2: 2^nd generation DMX, Dual cabinet, 18 drives per loop, 288 drives
• Symmetrix DMX2000-P2: 2^nd generation DMX, Dual cabinet, 9 drives per loop, 288 drives, P=Performance System
• Symmetrix DMX2000-M2-3: 2^nd generation DMX, Dual cabinet, 18 drives per loop, 288 drives, 3 Phase power
• Symmetrix DMX2000-P2-3: 2^nd generation DMX, Dual cabinet, 9 drives per loop, 288 drives, P=Performance System, 3 Phase power
• Symmetrix DMX3000-M2-3: 2^nd generation DMX, Triple cabinet, 18 drives per loop, 576 drives, 3 Phase power

To read about EMC DMX Symmetrix Hardware components

To read about EMC Symmetrix DMX models and major differences

Symmetrix DMX-3 or also called Symmetrix 7.0

• Released July 2005 and still being sold
• 8 Slice directors
• 1920 disk (RPQ ‘ed to 2400 drives)
• DAE based concept introduced
• Symmetrix Priority Controls
• RAID 5 introduced and then implemented on older DMX, DMX-2
• Virtual LUN technology
• SRDF enhancements
• Concept of vaulting introduced
• Enginuity microcode 5771.xx.xx, 5772.xx.xx

• Symmetrix DMX-3 950: System Cabinet, Storage Bay x 2, 360 drives max, Modular Power, 3 Phase power
• Symmetrix DMX-3: System Cabinet, Storage Bay x 8 (Expandable), 1920 drives max, RPQ’ed to 2400 drives, 3 Phase power

To read about differences between EMC Symmetrix DMX3 and DMX4 platforms

Symmetrix DMX-4 or also called Symmetrix 7.0

• Released July 2007 and still being sold
• Virtual provisioning
• Flash Drives
• FC / SATA drives
• RAID 6 introduced
• SRDF enhancements
• Total Cache: 512 GB
• Total Storage: 1 PB
• Largest drive supported 1TB SATA drive
• Flash drives 73GB, 146GB later now support for 200GB and 400GB released
• 1920 drives max (RPQ’ed to 2400 drives)
• Enginuity microcode 5772.xx.xx, 5773.xx.xx

• Symmetrix DMX-4 950: System Cabinet, Storage Bay x 2, 360 drives max, Modular Power, 3 Phase power
• Symmetrix DMX-4: System Cabinet, Storage Bay x 8 (Expandable), 1920 drives max, RPQ’ed to 2400 drives, Modular power, 3 Phase Power

Some models sold as DMX-4 1500, DMX-4 2500, DMX-4 3500 and DMX-4 4500

• To read about a blog post on EMC Symmetrix: DMX4 Components
• To read about differences between EMC Symmetrix DMX3 and DMX4 platforms
• To read about different drives types supported on EMC Symmetrix DMX4 Platform
• To read about differences between EMC Symmetrix DMX4 and V-Max Systems

Symmetrix V-Max

• (Released April 2009)
• Enginuity Microcode 5874.xxx.xxx
• Total number of drives supported: 2400
• Total Cache: 1 TB mirrored (512GB usable)
• Total Storage: 2 PB

All features on the V-Max have been discussed earlier on the blog post linked below

• Symmetrix V-Max SE: Single System Bay, SE=Single Engine, Storage Bay x 2, 360 drives max, cannot be expanded to a full blown 8 engine system if purchased as a SE, 3 Phase power, Modular Power
• Symmetrix V-Max: System Cabinet, Storage Bay x 10, 2400 drives max, modular power, 3 phase power

• To read about differences between EMC Symmetrix DMX4 and V-Max Systems
• To read about different drives types supported on EMC Symmetrix V-Max Platforms
• To read all about the EMC Symmetrix V-Max Platform

Conclusion

I could have easily added total memory capacity per frame, total number of dedicated DA/DAF slots, total slots, total universal slots, total memory slots, but then I didn’t know information on some of the old systems and didn’t want to be incorrect on them.

Hope you have enjoyed reading this post, with a bit of history related to the Symmetrix platform. I am pretty positive, as of today you will not find this consolidated information on any blog or the manufacturers website.

I really wish, EMC decided to open blogging to some Symmetrix, Clariion, Celerra, Centera specialist that support these systems on a day to day basis, the information that could come out from those guys could be phenomenal. Barry Burke writes a lot of stuff, but again a lot of FUD from him against IBM and HDS, its great reading him, but only a controlled amount of technical information comes from him.

© Devang for Gestalt IT, 2009. | EMC Symmetrix, 20 Years in the making
Read more posts categorized as Featured, Storage

With latest announcements from NetApp, IBM and EMC (Next Generation Celerra) in early Feb 2009, EMC’s DMX announcement might come right around EMC World 2009, plus or minus a month.

With the absence of Barry Burke from the Storage Blogosphere community over the past 3 months, it seems like he is busy working on strategy for the new generation of DMX machines. 

Here is my wish list or expectations on the new DMX Platform.

Strategy, Cost, Marketing, Support…….

Do less with more!!!! This will have to be the reality of the new generation of DMX’s. In this tough economy and financial distress, if a new product is pitched with same efficiencies and overall similar ROI and TCO models, it will be hard to sell.

Some important CIO, CFO pitches would include, less foot print with more data, higher efficiency, delivered at 2/3^rd the cost of previous generation of machines, energy savings, etc. Key Differentiators would be the cost per TB of data storage, cost per TB of management (Storage Administrators, OpEx), a savings of 20 to 30% in this equation might come into play.

The cost of warranty of each DMX is pretty high, during the warranty phase EMC Support Labs in Hopkinton, Sydney, Cork and Bangalore are supporting these boxes on a 24 x 7 basis. If EMC can manage to bring down the cost of in warranty repair including labor, parts, labs, engineering support, the savings from all these can be passed on to the customer. In this market, EMC might offer an extension of a 3 year warranty to a 4 year warranty that might help with ROI and TCO models.

Partners……

Support for new generation DMX’s installs extended to ASN Partners.

Some portions of Enterprise channels will be designed to work like Commercial channels promoting premier partners and ASN partners to perform some work on the enterprise machines. 

Model Numbers……

The million dollar question, will it be called Symmetrix DMX-5?

Or will it be called
DMX-5-XP (Extra Performance),
DMX-5-EF (EFD optimized machine),
DMX-5-V (extended support for Virtualization),
DMX-5-950 (same naming convention as before),
DMX-5-8 (8GB I/O),
DMX-V (You can think its V for virtualization or V for roman letter 5)

Let’s not get hung up on the model numbers though.

Names…….

Will EMC for the first time drop the name Symmetrix from this generation of machines, this name comes from the Moshe days.

Technology…..

EMC is known to make a big bang with technology with all its new product releases and has been a leader in bringing new technology to the market. Let’s talk about a few technological aspects to look forward to in the new generation of DMX.

The underlying DMX-3 design has been different than the DMX and DMX2 generation of machines. The DMX-4 design has been pretty similar to the DMX-3’s.

The point I am trying to make, EMC had a time frame of 5 years since the DMX2’s to come up with a radically changed DMX-5 design. Will a completely new design come to fruition with this generation of machines?

Enginuity Code……

A new Family Code is possibly due with this generation of DMX. May be an Initial release level of 5874.xx.xx.

Continued NDU (Non Disruptive Upgrade) Everything concept.

Introduction of PaPS (Plug and Play Support) with disk.

Size…….

2 Cabinet: where one Cabinet is for Controllers, and the other for 2.5 inch Flash Disk. This model will be optimized for Flash Drives only and will be lighting fast.

2 or more Cabinets where the 1^st Cabinet is for Controllers and the other ones for drives, the additional drive cabinets can be used for 3.5 inch drives or for 2.5 inch drives depending on the cabinet type you purchase. Also supported with Flash Drives.

Total Raw Storage……..

2048 TB (Double the capacity from DMX-4)

Cache…..

1024 GB Cache (First Enterprise Storage Array to hit 1TB of Cache)

Maximum usable memory: 512GB

Controllers…….

Each DAF, GbE, FICON, ESCON controllers might be subdivided into 8 slices (ports, processors) creating further condensation of controllers, I/O, footprint, drives per DAF.

Additional backend ports will be added with this.

Each processor might be 2.4 Ghz PowerPC Chip.

Introduction of Clariion Type Concepts in Enterprise Storage…….

Plug and Play for disk replacements, where presence of an EMC CE onsite might not be required. This is pretty common with Clariion and NetApp Systems today.

Conceptual change of Global Memory to Local Memory, where memory is part of the controllers and not a global memory pool and Flash drives are used for certain memory operations as a vault.

Microcode upgrades being performed by the customer like its done for the Flarecode today.

EFD’s……..

After support for 73GB and 146GB Flash, will might see 200GB , 400GB  and 500GB disk on this new generation of machines?

With the use of EFD’s in Enterprise storage would the concept of IOPS with Storage change to GHz & MIPS.

Introduction of 2.5 inch drives…….

With some OEMs introducing support for 2.5 inch drives, we might see EMC moving in the same direction.

The next generation Clariion’s might have similar drives in them too.

Symapi…….

Today the Symapi database resides on the Service Processor. Service Processors die; crash or get interrupted in middle of a change (provisioning, allocation, and configuration) and all of sudden the customer finds themselves in middle of crisis. All the change windows scheduled will have to be rescheduled, PSE’s dialing into the boxes to troubleshoot and fix issues, etc.

Introduction of an IP based (ethernet) connection to the DMX (talking about the DMX and not the SP) with multiple paths of communication. The SYMAPI databases will be locally stored on the DMX rather than the SP. This is similar to the VCMDB and the SFS volumes which already reside on the DMX.

Introduction of VMware ESXi into the Service Processor Environment to run multiple instances of SP Software and Windows for diagnostics, remote call home, etc. May be One VMware install can call home on the highest priority errors to location 1 and the second calling home with low to medium errors at location 2 and create two different queues for support priority.

Ethernet…..

As mentioned earlier, an introduction of IP based Ethernet management port, allowing SMC (Symmetrix Management Console) to interface, ECC and other Components can communicate through the same infrastructure.

Hardware……

Channel support which would include FICON, ESCON, GbE, FC, iSCSI, RF and some initial support for FCoE.

2048TB of storage in 5 cabinets can only be achieved with 2.5 inch drives.

Introduction of LP SATA Drives…..

Introduction of Low Power SATA Drives to conserve energy.

Plug and Play Support……

It sounds unreasonable, but if this can be incorporated into the DMX Platform, it will really take the overall platform to new levels with configuration, provisioning, customer interface, management, etc. Imagine if you want to add new drives to your current DMX, no BIN file change, just plug the drives in and configure through SMC.

High Efficiency….

At least 30% increase in efficiency, usage, savings, power and reduction in administration, management, support.

Added interface friendliness for SMC usage.

I/O Improvements……

8GB I/O per second Backend?

Improved Cache Partitioning , Mirroring and Priority Controls……

Further enhancements related to cache partitioning and cache mirroring, allowing customers to prioritize cache based on applications, times of the day, etc to certain set of drives or interfaces.

New Conceptual Design with BCV’s, DRV’s, Snaps and Clones……

As I say conceptual, I am not sure if history can change with this new generation of DMX machines or the new code. The mirrors, bcv’s, drv’s, snaps, clones are all treated as mirrored positions, configuration like RAID-5, RAID-6 is hard to manage.

If the code has been completely rewritten using new technologies this might be a reality, working more at a lun level rather than drive levels.

EFD’s and Optimizer…….

With EFD’s the use of Symm Optimizer is not deemed necessary, will optimizer become history?

Policy based support for Atmos…….

This will be one of the best features to look forward with the release of new DMX’s. Will DMX have native support for Atmos or will it be through a policy based engine as additional physical hardware.

Enhanced Support for VMware……..

This is a given, limitations with DMX and VMware with usage of LUN #’s, with the new DMX we will see additional native support for VMware integration features.

Enhanced RSA Integration…..

A lot was seen with DMX-3 and DMX-4 with access controls, etc. Further enhancements to security aspects of the storage.

Enhanced Support for RAID 5 / RAID 6, possible modification of one of the RAID designs to make the product faster………

Introduction of a new RAID type with this generation of DMX’s to compete with NetApp’s RAID-DP.

Storage Virtualization…….

This is really questionable, not sure where EMC wants to take Storage Virtualization.

Virtual Provisioning licensing…….

Virtual Provisioning included as part of the microcode and at no additional cost.

Native support for Deduplication?

Could this happen with the latest DMX’s

Built in SRM tools?

Some support for build in SRM tools into SMC, will help customers identify issues with the DMX.

Advancements with Green Infrastructure……..

This is a given, big marketing pitch, energy savings of 30% at least.

Advancements in Workflow and Automation…….

Further advancements with Workflow, Automation in new versions of ECC and SMC.

Initial Support for FCoE…..

Initial FCoE support has been released on the Clariions. We will see some initial support for FCoE on the new DMX generation. 

EMC has discussed this topic so many different ways in the blogosphere, I am pretty sure we will see some early adaption of it in this generation of DMX’s.

Hope I did cover a lot of ground in terms of new technology that we can look forward from EMC. 

As usual comments always welcome. 

© Devang for Gestalt IT, 2009. | Expectations with new Generation of DMX Technology
Read more posts categorized as All, Storage

As usual, expected from EMC, the Big Bang!!!!!

So after a lot of speculation, finally the Next Generation Celerra is released now. Again this time around, EMC is pushing the technology towards unified storage, deduplication and virtual provisioning giving away some bells and whistles at no cost.

Here are the highlights of the product.

Celerra Next Generation Ultra Scale Architecture, Unified Storage with Deduplication, Virtual Provisioning, File Level Retention, Support for Flash Drives – 30X IOPS, LP SATA Drives 5.4K, 32% Energy Savings, 22% lower TCO, 960 drives, 960TB of RAW Storage.

Release date: 24th Feb 2009

Product availability: Feb 2009, the NS-8G and NS-960 might be available early March 2009.

Models: NS-120, NS-480, NS-960, NS-G8 (Gateway Version).

Introduction of LP Sata Drives: Low Power SATA Drives 5.4K RPMs.

Introduction of Flash Drives in Celerra: 30X IOPS, introduction of Tier 0.

Cost: Low CapEx, OpEx. Customer installation available with Low and Medium profile celerra’s. High End Celerra’s available to install through ASN Partners or by EMC.

Protocols Supported: NAS, MPFS, FC, iSCSI

Software: Deduplication (no cost), Virtual Provisioning (no cost), Startup Assistant (no cost), Celerra Manager (no cost), Volume Manager (no cost), Celerra Snapsure (no cost) –

Energy Efficiency: 32% less energy consumption

Lower TCO: 22%

Build on: Intel Xeon Chips

Choice of Delivery: File Based or Block Based, NAS to MPFS for throughput, iSCSI to FC for throughput

NS-120
Supports 120 Drives
Supports Flash Drives
1 or 2 Blades
64TB
120TB RAW

NS-480
Support 480 Drives
Support Flash Drives
2 or 4 Blades
192TB
480TB RAW

NS-960
Support 960 Drives
Support Flash Drives
2 to 8 Blades
760TB
960TB RAW

NS-G8
Supports 4 Arrays behind NS-G8
2 to 8 Blades
896TB RAW

Applications usable on Celerra: VMware, Oracle, MS Exchange, MS SQL Server, Windows, Linux File Server

Celerra Integration Available: With VMware, Oracle, MS Exchange, MS SQL

Classifications:
High End: NS-G8, NS-960
Mid-Tier: NS-40G, NS-480, NS-120
Low End: NX-4

Compliance: Meets file level compliance related to SEC Rule 17a-4(f). Also available for the Celerra is 3rd Party Compliance.

Celerra File Level Retention: Celerra is being pushed to allow Filesystem archiving. For Application and Filesystem archiving you will still need a Centera.

ROI Models: Better ROI on Celerra models than any comparative NetApp models.

Haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, but hopefully soon and looking forward to it.

© Devang for Gestalt IT, 2009. | Next Generation Celerra – Unified Storage with Deduplication
Read more posts categorized as All, Storage