Enhancements to EMC Symmetrix V-Max systems is possibly around the corner (FY09 Q4).

FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) is due this quarter and will be one of the most awaited software release in the enterprise storage space by EMC.

Bundled together with FAST, possibly a new microcode version the enables FAST (its associated features) and other expected enhancements.

Though this will be a major software release and functionality upgrade, I don’t think this would qualify as a 2nd generation EMC Symmetrix V-Max system.

But fully expect EMC to release its FAST v2 and V-Max Gen2 (possibly named like V-Max II or V-Max Ext) somewhere around Mid year 2010.

Here are a few new features to possibly expect on the EMC Symmetrix V-Max Systems this quarter.

1. Introduction of FAST v1, which should allow automated data movement within a single Symmetrix V-Max system. Here are some features of FAST as discussed on GestaltIT and by Barry Burke (TSA) on his blog.

2. FAST v1 data movement should possibly be policy driven around factors like time (how old is the data), SLA (promised SLA’s), Tier (from Tier 0 to Tier 1 to Tier 2) and possibly I/O or IOPS based.

3. FAST v1 should allow automated policy based data movement or prompt a user for manual intervention for data movement.

4. Do not expect FAST v1 to come for free, it will possibly be licensed based on the total number of TB’s in the storage subsystem.

5. Expect some integration between the IONIX platform and FAST v1 and possibly some very tight integration with future releases of FAST and IONIX.

6. Expect FAST and IONIX to integrate very tightly with Atmos through API’s and policies. We should expect to see this with FAST v2 and not with FAST v1.

7. So when does EMC retire Symmetrix Optimizer, with FAST v1 probably not, with FAST v2 probably yes.

8. 2TB SATA II drives will be introduced (According to a Keynote from Joe Tucci in NYC), though Joe Tucci didn’t mention what platforms the 2TB SATA II drives will be available on, it seems the V-Max upgrade would be the most logical platform.

9. The 2TB SATA II drive upgrade should make the V-Max 4 PB total storage (2400 drives x 2TB), possibly the single largest storage subsystem at an enterprise level.

10. RapidIO speed upgrade from 2.5 Gbps to 4 Gbps (interconnects between the engines) upgraded either through MBIE (new processors) and / or through microcode upgrades. EMC currently uses Serial RapidIO which supports 1.25Ghz to 3.0Ghz clocking speeds and can scale upto 10 Gbps I/O though EMC currently utilizes 2.5 Gbps as its interconnect speeds for the engines.

11. Increased drive interconnect speeds. May be denser EFD’s, though I can’t speculate on it.

12. FC and FICON (Host Connects) port speeds upgrade from 4 Gbps to 8 Gbps

13. Interconnect between two separate Symmetrix V-Max Systems (8 Engines each per system) expanding into possibly 16 (max) engines. The more I think about this concept, the more it makes me feel that there are no added benefits of this architecture, rather it will add more complexities with data management and higher latency. Remember how the V-Max was initially marketed with having hundreds of engines and millions of IOPS, the only way to achieve that vision is through interconnects. The longer the distance, the more latency with cache and I/O. If Interconnects end up making in this release, limitation on the distance between two Symmetrix V-Max system bays would be around 100 feet.

14. To the point above, another way of possibly connecting these systems could merely be federation through external policy based engines. Ed Saipetch and myself have speculated that concept on GestaltIT.

15. With the use of larger drive size, possibly expect a cache upgrade. Currently the Symmetrix V-Max supports 1TB total cache (512GB usable), which may get upgraded to 2TB total cache (1024 GB usable).

16. New possible microcode version 5875 that will help bring features like FAST, SATA II drives and additional cache into the Symmetrix V-Max.

17. Processors: 4 x Quad Core Intel processors on V-Max engines may not get an upgrade in this release, it should possibly be with FAST v2 as a midlife enhancement next year.

18. Further enhancements related to FCoE support.

19. Upgrade of iSCSI interface on Symmetrix V-Max engines from 1GB to 10GB (is now available with the Clariion CX4 platforms).

20. Really do not expect this to happen, but imagine RapidIO interconnects change to FCoE. Really not sure what made EMC to go with RapidIO instead of Infiniband 40 Gbps (which most of the storage industry folks think is dead) or FCoE with Engine interconnects, but if the engineers at EMC thought of RapidIO as a means to connect the V-Max engines, there has to be a reason behind it. Enginuity more or less doesn’t care about the underlying switching technology, making a switch from RapidIO to FCoE or Infiniband can be accomplished without a lot of pains. Though for customers already invested into RapidIO technology (with existing V-Max systems), it might be offline time to change the underlying fabric, which in most cases is unacceptable.

21. Virtual Provisioning on Virtual LUNs which is currently not supported with the existing generation of Microcode on V-Max systems.

22. Atmos currently is running as a beta release and we should expect a market release this Quarter. Should we expect to see an integration between V-Max and Atmos. I am not sure of any integration today.

23. A very interesting feature to have in the EMC Symmetrix V-Max would be system partitioning, where you can run half the V-Max engines at a certain Microcode level with a certain set of features and other half can be treated as a completely separate system with its own identity (almost like a Mainframe environment). Shouldn’t this be a feature of a modular storage array.

24. Symmetrix Management Console (SMC) and Vmware integration (like VMware aware Navisphere and Navisphere aware VMware). There is already quite a bit of support related to VMware in SMC for provisioning and allocation.

25. Also a much tighter integration between IONIX, FAST, SMC, Navisphere and Atmos may after all be the secret sauce, which would enable workflow, dataflow and importantly automation. Though do not expect this integration now, something to look forward for the next year.

Summary

Though I am still a bit confused on where FAST will physically sit.

FAST v1 can merely be a feature integrated within the Microcode, configurable & driven through policy within the Symmetrix Management Console.

FAST v2 (Sometime Mid 2010) should support in-box and out-of-box (eg: Symmetrix to Clariion to Celerra to Centera) data movement through policy engine.

Ed Saipetch and myself have speculated on GestaltIT on how that may work. Though after some thoughts, I do believe a policy engine can merely be a VM or a vAPP sitting outside the physical storage system in the Storage environment.

To promote the sales of the EMC Symmetrix V-Max systems, Barry Burke in his blog post talks about Open Replicator, Open Migrator and SRDF / DM (Data mobility) are now available at no cost for customers purchasing a new EMC Symmetrix V-Max system, these are some of the incentives that EMC is offering and further promoting the sales of its latest generation Symmetrix technology.

It remains to be seen the path of success FAST will carve for Symmetrix V-Max systems.

© Devang for Gestalt IT, 2009. | Enhancements to EMC Symmetrix V-Max Systems coming!!
Read more posts categorized as Featured, Storage

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

The Symmetrix Management Console was developed back in the day as a GUI to view customers Symmetrix DMX environment, over years it has evolved more to be a functional and operational tool to interface the machine for data gathering but also to perform changes. EMC Solutions Enabler Symcli is a CLI based interface to the DMX and V-Max Systems, but the SMC complements the CLI by allowing customers to perform more or less similar functions through a GUI. The looks & feels of SMC also resemble ECC (EMC Control Center) and customers sometime refer it as a ECC-lite (SMC). 

EMC Symmetrix Management Console in action monitoring EMC Symmetrix V-Max Systems

Some of the important features and benefits of the SMC for V-Max are listed below:

1. Allows customers to manage multiple EMC Symmetrix V-Max Systems
2. Increase customer management efficiency by using Symmetrix Management Console to automate or perform functions with a few set of clicks
3. The Symmetrix Management Console 7.0 only works with Symmetrix V-Max systems
4. The Symmetrix Management Console is installed on the Service Processor of the V-Max System and can also be installed on a host in the SAN environment.
5. Customers can now do trending, performance reporting, planning and consolidation using SMC
6. SMC will help customers reduce their TCO with V-Max Systems
7. It takes minutes to install. Windows environment running a Windows Server 2003 along with IIS would be the best choice.
8. The interface the customers work on is a GUI. It has the looks and feels of ECC and the Console also integrates with ECC.
9. New Symmetrix V-Max systems are configured and managed through the Symmetrix Management Console.
10. SMC also manages user, host permissions and access controls
11. Alert Management
12. From a free product, SMC now becomes a licensed product, which the customers will  have to pay for


Virtual LUN Technology in works using a wizard

13. It allows customers to perform functions related to configuration changes like creating and mapping masking devices, changing device attributes, flag settings, etc
14. Perform replication functions using SMC like Clone, Snap, Open Replicator, etc
15. SMC enables Virtual Provisioning with the Symmetrix V-Max arrays
16. Enables Virtual LUN technology for automated policies and tiering.
17. Auto Provisioning Group technology is offered through wizards in SMC
18. Dynamic Cache Partitioning: Allocates and deallocates cache based on policies and utilization.
19. Symmetrix Priority Controls
20. From the SMC, customers can now launch SPA (Symmetrix Performance Analyzer), this is more on the lines of Workload Analyzer which is a standard component of ECC Suite. This allows customers to view their storage & application performance & monitoring. SPA will can be obtained as a Add-on product from EMC based on licensing.
21. The SMC gives the customer capabilities for Discovery, Configuration, Monitoring, Administration and Replication Management.
22. SMC can be obtained from EMC Powerlink or through your account manager from EMC if you have an active contract in place with EMC for hardware/software maintenance or if your systems are under warranty.

Highly recommended management tool for SAN Admins and yea it’s not free anymore for V-Max Systems.   

To read the previous blog post on Symmetrix Management Console, as it relates to Symmetrix DMX-3 and DMX-4 machines.

A nice technical post by Steve Todd on V-Max and Symmetrix Management Console

A post by StorageZilla on Auto Provisioning Groups with SMC

Note: Both the pictures in this blog post have been derived from EMC’s Symmetrix Management Console Data Sheet.

© Devang for Gestalt IT, 2009. | EMC Symmetrix Management Console (SMC for Symmetrix V-Max Systems)
Read more posts categorized as Storage