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Symmetrix: The Journey of 20 Years

Devang Panchigar — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:00:50 +0000

So this year will mark the history of the Symmetrix products, 20 years since its inception and the Symmetrix has come long ways. Initially released in 1990, today’s Symmetrix does not come any close to what the product was 20 years ago. The underlying code (Enginuity) is what drives and gives the Symmetrix its personality.

Symmetrix was a compute / storage beast 20 years ago and so it is today.

This post includes the video “Journey of the Symmetrix” (20 years in the making) created exclusively for this blog post.

To read more about the Symmetrix

Symmetrix Deepdive

Symmetrix product is considered a Flagship product and possibly has the largest share in the Enterprise Storage – Compute market today.

Here is a video I have put together showing my love for the Symmetrix Product. It starts with the Symm that was invented 20 years ago to this last generation Symmetrix V-Max.

Viewable in HD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieC_xUBp-Zc

Some other details on the Symmetrix include generation of the product, some facts, Enginuity code levels and model numbers.

The 8 Generations of Symmetrix

First Generation: 1990
Second Generation: 1992
Symmetrix 3.0: 1994
Symmetrix 4.0: 1996
Symmetrix 4.8: 1998
Symmetrix 5.0: 2000
Symmetrix 5.5: 2001
Symmetrix DMX (Generation 6.0): 2003
Symmetrix DMX-2 (Generation 6.5): 2004
Symmetrix DMX-3 (Generation 7.0): 2005
Symmetrix DMX-4 (Generation 7.5): 2007
Symmetrix V-Max (Generation 8.0): 2009

There are various models within each generation of the Symmetrix and these models have different characteristics. Follow the deepdive section to read more about it.

Some other facts of the Symmetrix include:

Introduced in 1990
8^th Generation Symmetrix available in the market today
450 Patents
Introduction of the first every ICDA: Integrated Cache Disk array
First system to support both Mainframe and Open systems environment
SRDF Support introduced in 1994 (first in the market)
RSF Supported introduced in 1992 (first in the market)
BCV support introduced in 1997 (first in the market)
In-the-Box Tiering only offered through Symmetrix (DMX-4 onwards), can support FLASH, Fibre and SATA drives
Symmetrix (DMX-4) is worlds first PB enterprise system
Symmetrix (V-Max) is worlds first multi PB enterprise system
USD 3 Billion invested in Symmetrix Multi-vendor Interoperability Matrix support
800 Speed Gurus supporting the Symmetrix Performance and configurations for optimizing environments.

Enginuity Code Levels

First Generation: Unknown
Second Generation: Unknown
Symmetrix 3.0: 50xx, 51xx
Symmetrix 4.0: 5265, 5266
Symmetrix 4.8: 5266, 5267
Symmetrix 5.0: 5567, 5568
Symmetrix 5.5: 5568
Symmetrix DMX (Generation 6.0): 5669, 5670, 5671
Symmetrix DMX-2 (Generation 6.5): 5670, 5671
Symmetrix DMX-3 (Generation 7.0): 5771, 5772
Symmetrix DMX-4 (Generation 7.5): 5772, 5773
Symmetrix V-Max (Generation 8.0): 5874

Symmetrix Models

First Generation: 4200
Second Generation: 4400, 4800
Symmetrix 3.0: 3100/5100, 3200/5200, 3500/5500
Symmetrix 4.0: 3330/5330, 3430/5430, 3700/5700
Symmetrix 4.8: 3630/5630, 3830/5830, 3930/5930
Symmetrix 5.0: 8130, 8430, 8730
Symmetrix 5.5: 8230, 8530, 8830
Symmetrix DMX (Generation 6.0): DMX800, DMX1000, DMX1000-P, DMX2000, DMX2000-P, DMX3000-3
Symmetrix DMX-2 (Generation 6.5): DMX801, DMX1000-M2, DMX1000-P2, DMX2000-M2, DMX2000-P2, DMX2000-M2-3, DMX3000-M2-3
Symmetrix DMX-3 (Generation 7.0): DMX3-950, DMX3
Symmetrix DMX-4 (Generation 7.5): DMX4-950, DMX4
Symmetrix V-Max (Generation 8.0): V-Max SE, V-Max

Disclaimers

I have not been awarded a free V-Max or DMX-4 for my basement. I do not personally own a V-Max or a DMX-4.

As you can see, this post shows my love for the Symmetrix technology and sort of my tribute to the 20 years of Symmetrix technology advancement.

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Enterprise Computing: Has EMC Slipped Zero Block Reclaim Into V-Max?

Chris Evans — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:56:48 +0000

I spent some time today looking at the release notes for Enginuity code 5874.207.166, which presumably is the one that brings the much lauded Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) into general release on V-Max. Just above the FAST paragraph I found the following:

Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning Space Reclamation reduces capacity requirements and total cost of ownership by automatically reclaiming chunks (768 KB track groups) that contain all zeros. This is most effective when used on volumes after thick-to-thin migration or replication.

So, it seems that V-Max now supports features previously only seen on 3Par InServ, HDS USP V and HP XP – that is the ability to reclaim empty “zeros” of data from LUNs – otherwise known as Zero Block Reclaim.

I don’t remember EMC mentioning this little fact as part of their big FAST announcement. In fact, looking back over Barry B’s posts, here’s a link to a post from July in which Barry indicates (quoting again);

I cannot confirm nor deny that VP will support one or more unused space reclamation approaches in the future.

So do EMC just see ongoing space reclamation as a BAU activity, not worthy of an announcement? I’m surprised that this would be the case. Reclamation of “empty” storage is incredibly important when migrating from thick->thin storage environments. Hitachi quote around 40% savings from using ZPR after a migration to thin provisioning on USP V.

Perhaps EMC don’t want us to know that migrating to V-Max can actually reduce the amount of storage in use. After all, its not good for hardware sales, is it?

By the way, EMC, please feel free to comment on this new feature and how easy it is to use. I’d be interested to discover how it is implemented.

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© Chris for Gestalt IT, 2009. | Enterprise Computing: Has EMC Slipped Zero Block Reclaim Into V-Max?
Read more posts categorized as Server Virtualization, Storage

EMC Symmetrix: Dynamic Hot Spares

Devang Panchigar — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:38:39 +0000

Permanent Spares: Was introduced starting the Symmetrix DMX3 products, now available on DMX4’s and V-Max systems. I believe, Enginuity code 5772 started supporting Permanent Spares to guard customers against failing disk drives to further help reduce any performance, redundancy and processing degradation on the Symmetrix systems with features that were not available with the Dynamic Hot Sparing.

Highlights of Permanent Sparing

Due to some design, performance, redundancy limitations and Symmetrix mirror positions, dynamic hot spares were becoming a bottleneck related to customer internal job processing, example: a failed 1TB SATA drive sync to dynamic spare might take more than 8 to 48 hours. While a similar process to remove the dynamic spare and equalize the replaced drive might take the same. During this time the machine is more or less in a lock down (Operational but not configurable).

Due to these limitations, a concept of Permanent spares was introduced on EMC Symmetrix systems, which would help fulfill some gaps the Dynamic hot spares technology has. Following are the criteria for Dynamic Hot Spares.

To read about EMC Symmetrix : Permanent Hot Spares

Some important things to consider with Dynamic Hot Sparing

Supported through microcode (Enginuity) version starting Symmetrix Family 4.0, support extended through all later releases of Enginuity until DMX-4 (5773).
Dynamic Hot Spares configured and enabled in the backend by an EMC CE.
No BIN file change is performed as the Dynamic Hot Spare gets invoked or removed upon a disk drive failure.
No BIN file change is allowed until the Dynamic Hot Spare is removed from the active used devices pool and inserted back into the Spares pool.
An EMC CE will need to attend site to replace the failed drive and put the dynamic hot spare back in the pool of devices available for sparing.
Enginuity does not check for performance and redundancy when the dynamic hot spare is invoked.
In the previous generation of Symmetrix systems, an exact match (speed, size, block size) was required with Dynamic hot spares. Starting I believe the 5772 (DMX3 onwards) version of microcode that requirement is not necessary. Now larger or smaller multiple dynamic spares can be spread across protecting multiple devices not ready, the one to one relationship (failed drive to dynamic spare) is not true any more.
Related to performance on DMX3 systems and above, if correct dynamic spares are not configured, customers can see issues around redundancy and performance. Example, A 10K drive can be invoked automatically against a failed drive that is 15K causing performance issues. Also a drive on the same loop as other raid group devices can be invoked as a hot spare, potentially causing issues if the entire loop was to go down.
Dynamic spares will not take all the characteristics of failed drives. Example, mirror positions.
While the Permanent Spare or Dynamic Hot Spare is not invoked and is sitting in the machine waiting for a failure, these devices are not accessible from the front end (customer). The folks back at the PSE labs, will still be able to interact with these devices and invoke it for you incase of a failure or a proactive failure or for any reasons the automatic invoke fails.
If a Permanent Spare fails to invoke, a Dynamic Hot Spare is invoked, if a Dynamic Hot Spare fails to invoke, the customer data stays unprotected.
Dynamic Hot Spare is supported with RAID-1, RAID-10, RAID-XP, RAID-5 and various configurations within each Raid type. Dynamic hot sparing does not work with RAID-6 devices.
As far as I know for the V-Max systems, Dynamic hot sparing is not supported.

Some important benefits of Dynamic Hot Sparing

Dynamic Hot Sparing kicks in when Permanent Sparing fails to invoke
Provides additional protection against data loss
No BIN file change is performed with Dynamic Hot Sparing

As a requirement to all the new systems that are configured now, sparing is required. Hope this provides a vision into configuring your next EMC Symmetrix on the floor.

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EMC Symmetrix: Permanent Sparing

Devang Panchigar — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:54:07 +0000

There are two types of sparing strategies available on EMC Symmetrix Series of machines.

Dynamic Hot Sparing: Starting the Symmetrix 4.0, EMC had introduced dynamic hot spares in its Enginuity code to support customers against failing disk drives and reducing the probability of a data loss. Available there onwards on each version of Symmetrix, customers have been able to use this Hot Sparing technology. Today the Dynamic sparing is available on Symmetrix 4.0, Symmetrix 4.8, Symmetrix 5.0, Symmetrix 5.5, DMX, DMX2, DMX3, and DMX4 systems.

Permanent Spares: Was introduced starting the Symmetrix DMX3 products, now available on DMX4’s and V-Max systems. I believe, Enginuity code 5772 started supporting Permanent Spares to guard customers against failing disk drives to further help reduce any performance, redundancy and processing degradation on the Symmetrix systems with features that were not available with the Dynamic Hot Sparing.

Highlights of Permanent Sparing

Due to some design, performance, redundancy limitations and Symmetrix mirror positions, dynamic hot spares were becoming a bottleneck related to customer internal job processing, example: a failed 1TB SATA drive sync to dynamic spare might take more than 8 to 48 hours. While a similar process to remove the dynamic spare and equalize the replaced drive might take the same. During this time the machine is more or less in a lock down (Operational but not configurable).

Permanent Spares are supported through the microcode (Enginuity) versions starting the DMX-3 (5772 onwards) into the latest generation Symmetrix V-Max Systems.
The customer needs to identify and setup the devices for Permanent Spares using Solutions enabler or an EMC CE should perform a BIN file change on the machine to enable Permanent Spares and the associated devices.
When the Permanent Spare kicks in upon a failing / failed drive, a BIN file change locally within the machine is performed using the unattended SIL. Any configuration locks or un-functional Service Processors will kill the process before it’s initiated, in this instance the Permanent Spare will not be invoked but rather will invoke the Dynamic Hot Spare.
An EMC CE will not require attending the site right away to replace the drive since the Permanent Spare has been invoked and all the data is protected. All failed drives where Permanent spares have been invoked can be replaced in a batch. When the failed drive is replaced, it will become a Permanent spare and will go the Permanent spares pool.
Configuration of Permanent Spares is initiated through BIN file change, during this process, the CE or the customer will required to consider Permanent Spares rules related to performance and redundancy.
If a Permanent Spare cannot be invoked due to any reasons related to performance and redundancy, a Dynamic Hot Spare will be invoked against the failing / failed device.
The Permanent Spare will take all the original characteristics of a failed disk (device flags, meta configs, hyper sizes, mirror positions, etc) as it gets invoked.
The rule of thumb with permanent spares is to verify that the machine has required type / size / speed / capacity / block size of the related permanent spare drives configured.
You can have a single Symmetrix frame with Permanent Spares and Dynamic Hot Spares both configured.
While the Permanent Spare or Dynamic Hot Spare is not invoked and is sitting in the machine waiting for a failure, these devices are not accessible from the front end (customer). The folks back at the PSE labs, will still be able to interact with these devices and invoke it for you incase of a failure or a proactive measure or for any reasons the automatic invoke fails.
Permanent spares can be invoked against Vault drives, if a permanent spare drive is available on the same DA where the failure occurred.
Permanent spares can be configured with EFD’s. I believe for every 2 DAE’s (30+ drives) you have to configure one hot spare EFD (permanent spares).
Permanent Spares supports RAID type RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5, RAID 6 and all configurations within.

Some important Benefits of Permanent Sparing

Additional protection against data loss
Permanent sparing reduces the number of times the data copy is required (one time) instead of dynamic spares that needs to data copy (two times).
Permanent sparing resolves the problem of mirror positions.
Permanent spares (failed) drives can be replaced in batches, do not require immediate replacement.
Permanent spares do not put a configuration lock on the machine, while an invoked dynamic spare will put a configuration lock until replaced.
Permanent spares obey the rules of performance and redundancy while Dynamic hot sparing does not.

As a requirement to all the new systems that are configured now, sparing is required. Hope this provides a vision into configuring your next EMC Symmetrix on the floor.

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EMC Symmetrix V-Max: Enginuity 5874

Devang Panchigar — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:00:50 +0000

EMC Symmetrix V-Max systems were introduced back in the month of April 2009. With this new generation of Symmetrix came a new name V-Max and a new Enginuity family of microcode 5874.

To read about Symmetrix on StorageNerve Blog: http://storagenerve.com/tag/symmetrix

To read about V-Max systems on StorageNerve Blog: http://storagenerve.com/tag/v-max/

With this family of microcode 5874: there are 7 major areas of enhancements as listed below.

Base enhancements

Management Interfaces enhancements

SRDF functionality changes

Timefinder Performance enhancements

Open Replicator Support and enhancements

Virtualization enhancements

Also EMC introduced SMC 7.0 (Symmetrix Management Console) for managing this generation of Symmetrix. Read about the SMC 7.0 post below.

http://storagenerve.com/2009/05/06/emc-symmetrix-management-console-symmetrix-v-max-systems/

With Enginuity family 5874 you also need solutions enabler 7.0

The initial Enginuity was release 5874.121.102, a month into the release we saw a new emulation and SP release 5874.122.103 and the latest release as of 18^th of June 2009 is 5874.123.104. With these new emulation and SP releases, there aren’t any new features added to the microcode rather just some patches and fixes related to the maintenance, DU/DL and environmentals.

Based on some initial list of enhancements by EMC and then a few we heard at EMC World 2009, to sum up, here are all of those.

RVA: Raid Virtual Architecture:

With Enginuity 5874 EMC introduced the concept of single mirror positions. Normally it has always been challenging to reduce the mirror positions since they cap out at 4. With enhancements to mirror positions related to SRDF environments and RAID 5 (3D + 1P, 7D +1P) / RAID 6 (6D+2P, 14D+2P) / RAID 1 devices, now it will open doors to some further migration and data movement opportunities related to SRDF and RAID devices.

Large Volume Support:

With this version of Enginuity, we will see max volume size of 240GB for open systems and 223GB for mainframe systems with 512 hypers per drive. The maximum drive size supported on Symmetrix V-Max system is 1TB SATA II drives. The maximum drive size supported for EFD on a Symmetrix V-Max system is 400GB.

Dynamic Provisioning:

Enhancements related to SRDF and BCV device attributes will overall improve efficiency during configuration management. Will provide methods and means for faster provisioning.

Concurrent Configuration Changes:

Enhancements to concurrent configuration changes will allow the customer and customer engineer to perform through Service Processor and through Solutions enabler certain procedures and changes that can be all combined and executed through a single script rather than running them in a series of changes.

Service Processor IP Interface:

All Service Processors attached to the Symmetrix V-Max systems will have Symmetrix Management Console 7.0 on it, that will allow customers to login and perform Symmetrix related management functions. Also the service processor will have capabilities to be managed through the customer’s current IP (network) environment. Symmetrix Management Console will have to be licensed and purchased from EMC for V-Max systems. The prior versions of SMC were free. SMC will now have capabilities to be opened through a web interface.

SRDF Enhancements:

With introduction of RAID 5 and RAID 6 devices on the previous generation of Symmetrix (DMX-4), now the V-Max offers a 300% better performance with TImefinder and other SRDF layered apps to make the process very efficient and resilient.

Enhanced Virtual LUN Technology:

Enhancements related to Virtual LUN Technology will allow customers to non-disruptively perform changes to the location of disk either physically or logically and further simplify the process of migration on various systems.

Virtual Provisioning:

Virtual Provisioning can now be pushed to RAID 5 and RAID 6 devices that were restrictive in the previous versions of Symmetrix.

Autoprovisioning Groups:

Using Autoprovisiong groups, customers will now be able to perform device masking by creating host initiators, front-end ports and storage volumes. There was an EMC Challenge at EMC World 2009 Symmetrix corner for auto provisioning the symms with a minimum number of clicks. Autoprovisioning groups are supported through Symmetrix Management Console.

So the above are the highlights of EMC Symmetrix V-Max Enginuity 5874. As new version of the microcode is released later in the year stay plugged in for more info.