With the recent buzz from EMC about #EMCBreaksRecords on Twitter, Facebook and many other Social Media avenues it was pretty visible that EMC has been secretly preparing for one of the biggest announcements that was made today.

Along with FAST VP and upgrades on the VMAX, EMC also announced the much-anticipated unified storage platform VNX. The VNX strategy was very visible at EMC atleast for the past year and was overdue for a release.

FAST, FAST VP

We have been talking about FAST for quite a few years now, atleast 1 year and 9 months. Here comes a new version for FAST on VMAX known as FAST VP (Fully Automated Storage Tiering Virtual Pools), which was released today at the big event in NYC. Next as we know would be FAST to the FULLEST (possibly incorporating VPLEX solution to move data across different subsystems).

All new features wrapped around in Enginuity 5875, this release is considered as one of the most aggressive code releases by EMC for the Symmetrix platform.

By the way, if you didnt know, Symmetrix is now more than 20 years old, probably the longest living brands in the Storage world still alive and kicking a**. Here is a blog post talking about the 20-year history of Symmetrix.

http://storagenerve.com/2009/12/15/symmetrix-the-journey-of-20-years/

Some highlights of Enginuity 5875 include

FAST VP (Virtual Pools) SUB LUN Tiering

DARE (RSA based Encryption technology) added natively

VSI (Virtual Storage Integrator)

Addition of 10GB SRDF and iSCSI Directors

FLM (Federated Live Migration)

VAAI Support

ZPR or Zero Page Reclaim

There are some great posts already out by EMC Bloggers and many other independent bloggers around VMAX, FAST VP and the enhancements to VMAX platform. So I am not going to recreate the wheel here.

Barry Burke has pushed out some very interesting posts on the features wrapped around in Enginuity 5875. This post talks about some featured enhancements to the VMAX platform, customer benefits around migration, sub lun tiering, encryption, VAAI support, etc.

http://thestorageanarchist.typepad.com/weblog/2011/01/3017-vmax-2011-edition-powerful-trusted-smartest.html

Few other interesting posts here by Barry on FAST VP and how it works in customer environments.

A few questions / comments / observations on FAST VP

As I understand, VMAX Systems will need to be at Enginuity 5875 code level before you qualify for FAST VP, not a big deal (for some).

You need licenses for FAST VP.

Policies for FAST VP are configured from the SMC?

If you are already a FAST customer on VMAX and want to migrate to FAST VP, I suspect the licensing will change with this new feature.

As a customer of FAST today, migrating to FAST VP for sub lun level tiering, may require you to reanalyze your business requirements associated with virtual pools.

FAST policies today can be migrated to FAST VP policies, like the time of day, IOPS, etc?

FAST configuration for VMAX was typically done by the Professional Services Group. I am suspecting the same is true for FAST VP.

Tier Advisor is required to perform analysis in your environment is only available through EMC pre and post sales folks.

Though the native functionality of FAST VP is built within the Enginuity code, the activity and logic is driven from the service processor of the Symmetrix system, again suspecting SMC is doing this work? Also suspecting without the SP being functional, FAST VP policies do not get updated and the process dies.

Do not know, the extent size 768KB on a VMAX is functionally and operationally any advantageous compared to a 42MB extent.

FAST VP policies seem to be very granular.

Once FAST VP is setup on Virtual Pools in a Storage Group, additional of any other Virtual Pools would require the customer to analyze the new Pools (using Tier Advisor) before setting policies.

http://thestorageanarchist.typepad.com/weblog/2011/01/3018-fast-vpworlds-smartest-storage-tiering-part-1.html#more

http://thestorageanarchist.typepad.com/weblog/2011/01/3019-fast-vp-worlds-smartest-storage-tiering-part-2.html#more

The above posts from Barry are quite detailed and informative, if you are into Symmetrix technology, highly recommend reading it.

Discovered the blog by Itzikr from EMC Israel about 2 weeks ago

Itzikr talks in detail about Enginuity 5875, support for VAAI, VMware integration and FAST VP.

http://itzikr.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/emc-symmetrix-vmax-enginuity-5875-fast-vp-vaai-making-the-best-array-even-better/

And as usual a very informative and lengthy post from Chuck Hollis on VMAX platform.

http://chucksblog.emc.com/chucks_blog/2011/01/symmetrix-vmax-gets-even-smarter.html#more

A Video Stream from Wikibon covering todays announcement from EMC. The first few mins of the video talk about Symmetrix VMAX FAST VP.

http://www.justin.tv/wikibon/b/277797896

And lastly, one of my favorite posts from Nigel Poulton talking about FAST VP from late December.

http://blog.nigelpoulton.com/vmax-comes-of-age/

Enjoy reading the above posts!! Courteous comments welcome. Again thanks for visiting and reading the blog.

FAST: Features, Drawbacks, Applications and some Questions

December 9th, 2009Devang Panchigar2 Comments

FAST (FULLY AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERING)

FAST made a debut in the storage market yesterday (12/08/09). Finally after the market buzz we got a preview of the product in terms of its features, functionality, characteristics, possible shortcomings and use cases.

This blog post focuses on the features, the drawbacks and some applications around FAST. By no means is this a comprehensive or an exhaustive list of the above.

After all, FAST makes a debut, (The previous post on FAST).

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Imagine the possibilities of FAST with this infrastructure

NOTE: Out of the box thinking by EMC, imagine the flexibility one would have with a large infrastructure and FAST moving data based on policy. Its all about the big picture.

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Here are some features, highlights of FAST and how it operates.

FAST will perform data movement based on IOPS, average I/O size and write percentage. This is currently true for the Symmetrix V-Max, Clariion CX4 and Celerra NS.

Three elements that define FAST: Storage Type, FAST policies and Storage Groups.

FAST is based on user defined configuration policies.

The configuration of FAST is typically done through FAST wizards (Symmetrix Management Console) on Symmetrix V-Max, FAST LUN Migrator for Clariion CX4 and Rainfinity File Management Appliance or VE for Celerra NS.

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User defined analysis period for FAST. That will enable FAST to recommend or perform data analysis and then a data move based on policy.

FAST created policies will associate with Storage Groups.

FAST policies will be configurable at a LUN / drive / drive type / speed etc level.

Data movement will take place based on a time of the date policy called COLD move or on usage policy called HOT move.

Data movement will take place between various drive types, various LUN types and LUN sizes. (LUN types, LUN sizes will need to be same for the source and destination LUNs). For example a 9GB FBA LUN being migrated from Fibre to FLASH will need similar source and destination LUN properties.

FAST data analysis will be performed in the background.

For Symmetrix V-Max platform FAST will perform all analysis without the use of Symmetrix Performance Analyzer. Understanding is there will be some sort of API plugin available on the Service Processor of the V-Max that will enable Symmetrix Management Console (FAST plugin) to interface with the Symmetrix through the SYMAPI interface.

For Clariions, the performance data of the array will be monitored and collected by Navisphere Analyzer.

Based on the source LUN analysis, FAST will recommend the user to move the data either a faster speed drives or a slower speed drives.

FAST will enable roll back based on user preferences (automated).

FAST will be configurable by Symmetrix Management console wizards or SYMCLI

FAST configurable by Clariion Naviseccli and installed on a host connected to Clariion, Host software called FAST LUN Migrator.

FAST configurable by Rainfinity File Management Appliance GUI or CLI for Celerra NS out-of-box data movement. This enables the Celerra to move data to another Celerra or Centera or Atmos.

FAST configurable by Rainfinity File Management / VE (Virtual Appliance) for Celerra NS in-the-box data movement.

FAST can be installed non-disruptively on all platforms.

FAST will operate both at an FBA and CKD level supporting open systems and mainframes for V-Max.

FAST will operate at a LUN level on Symmetrix V-Max

FAST will operate at a LUN level on Clariion CX4

FAST will operate at a file level on Celerra NS

FAST v1 users will be able to purchase a FAST v2 upgrade when its released in second half of 2010.

FAST can be purchased as a FAST suite or part of an ATSM (Advanced Tiering Storage Management) suite with bundled discounting prices.

For a unified storage system like a front end NAS (Celerra) with a backend SAN (Clariion), FAST can coexists at both levels. But it is not recommended to deploy FAST at a Celerra LUN level.

FAST integrates with Symmetrix Management Console and with Rainfinity GUI (Celerra) for simple management. Though Clariion implementation will need one to specialize in CLI.

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FAST data movement on supported platforms (Symmetrix V-Max, Clariion CX4 and Celerra NS).

Symmetrix V-Max Data Movement

Clariion CX4 Data Movement

Celerra in the box data movement

Celerra in the box and out of box data movement

FAST introduction by EMC

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FAST Drawbacks

Here are some drawbacks of FAST as I see it today.

Does not support Virtual provisioning. So the Virtual provisioned LUNs will not be FAST enabled. Sub-LUN expected in second half of 2010

FAST is not free and is charged based on RAW CAPACITY of the Storage Array.

FAST will only work with similar LUN types (example FBA LUNs can be migrated to FBA) and LUN sizes (9GB LUN can be migrated to a 9GB LUN) only.

FAST will require Professional Services and is not recommended for customer self implementation at least for the Clariion and the Celerra platforms. EMC is making a claim that FAST can be self provisioned on the Symmetrix V-Max platform.

FAST works only on current generation systems like EMC V-Max Enginuity 5874, Clariion CX4 Release 29 and Celerra NS.

With Clariion CX4 and FAST implementation, requirement is to have Navisphere Analyzer.

With Celerra NS and FAST implementation, requirement is to have Rainfinity File Management /VE or Appliance.

With Symmetrix V-Max FAST implementation, requirement is to have Symmetrix Management Console (Not free any more starting with the V-Max)

For the Clariions, FAST only analyzes Fibre drives and LUN movement has to initiate from Fibre channel to FLASH or Fibre channel to SATA drives only. Movement from FLASH to Fibre or SATA to Fibre has to be initiated manually.

A customer implementing Virtual Provisioning on Clariion CX4 and Symmetrix V-Max that is using 50% Thick Provisioning and 50% Virtual Provisioning. FAST will not work with Virtual Provisioned LUNs. But the customer will probably pay for 100% of Storage Raw Capacity when it comes to paying for FAST either non-bundled or bundled in an ATSM (Advanced Tiering Storage Management).

FAST does not support IBM System I platform currently.

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Some real world FAST applications

vBlock

Acadia Service Model can now add granularity with offerings around on-demand resources using FAST at its core.

On Demand application and workload needs can be met for OLTP, Data Warehousing, Mainframe compute and Virtual compute using FAST driven policies.

Multi-tenancy with Private Clouds

Move high demand data on faster drives while rarely used data goes on slower drives.

Sell ITaaS based on SLAs. Higher SLAs can mean higher price. All automated processes controlled by policy.

Higher transactions typically mean low overall cost; mean higher efficiency means higher profits all achievable through FAST policy engine.

Need to see some real world implementations of FAST now. In theory and on paper, FAST looks pretty compelling but practically will it do the magic.

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Some unanswered questions today

How does it prevent from LUNs jumping between Fiber, FLASH and SATA if the application has un-expected performance that day?

Manageability of FAST interfaces.

Usability of FAST interfaces.

Granular configuration policies associated with analysis.

Future upgrades.

Current implementations and how long and how effective are those.

Can you improve performance without using SSDs. Example with Fibre and SATA drives only.

With future upgrades from FAST v1 to FAST v2 what happens with current user defined policies.

Would Symcli scripts change with FAST implementation?

During lockout periods (Where Symmetrix configuration cannot change, eg before a BIN file change) would FAST still operate.

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FAST is a bit of a new subject for me. Any experts please feel free to correct me if my understanding of FAST is incorrect at any level.

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

After all, FAST makes a debut

December 8th, 2009Devang Panchigar2 Comments

So EMC has proved critics like me wrong and have introduced EMCFAST (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.

FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering)

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 newenhancementsto 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 tieringin-the-boxfor Symmetrix V-Max,in-the-boxfor Clariion CX4 andout-of-boxfor 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 withinATSM: Advanced Tiering Storage Managementbundle and will be charged based onRAW 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 withEMC Symmetrix V-Max Enginuity Microcode 5874.xxx.xxxandClariion 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

Symmetrix V-Max Data Movement

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 will be required for FAST to operate on Symmetrix V-Max platform.(Based on the comment from Barry Burke below, Symmetrix Performance Analyzer is not required for FAST to operate on the Symmetrix V-Max platform.

EMC Clariion CX4

Clariion CX4 Data Movement

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

Celerra in the box data movement

Celerra out of box data movement

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.

FAST Implementation

A FAST implementation video

Here is apost, back from August 2009 on Gestalt IT describing how EMCs 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.

FAST, miles and miles away!!!

December 3rd, 2009Devang Panchigar8 Comments

Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST)

April 2009, that is when we heard about FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering). The hype around FAST is now built; we have all seen a 2 min demo of the product at Vmworld 2009. The industry, the analysts, the bloggers and EMC are all talking about it. EMC has promised this will be an exciting product and could help better integrate and federate EMC products of the future.

But, where is FAST today?

Initially FAST v1 was set to release late Q3 or early Q4. We are almost at the end of Q4. The announcement of FAST came in April 2009 with the release of EMC Symmetrix V-Max systems. The product was announced pre GA. Here is a blog post by Barry Burke (FAST: Fully Automated Storage Tiering) indicating a Q4 release date, but after all FAST is nowhere to be found.

It seems FAST probably got shuffled somewhere in the scheduling, product marketing, technology design and development or ?. A product talked about, written about but rather un-visible at this point. Here is a blog post from Chuck Hollis (Peering into the Storage Crystal Ball) indicating FAST v1 may now not be available until early 2010.

With a 2010 GA date, FAST will be a 9 to 11 month early announcement product technology that was sold and is being sold with the V-Max without an actual product.

FAST v1 will be available for the Symmetrix V-Max platform and then eventually for the Clariion and Celerra platforms. FAST v2 is due to be released in late Q2 2010.

Is EMC trying to bring some additional functionality from FAST v2 to FAST v1 since current test customers are probably not excited about FAST v1. It seems everyone in the industry is looking forward to FAST v2 and the features it may bring together with it. At this point, there is really a lack of excitement around FAST v1. Is FAST in any sort of legal battle today, which is causing additional delays, Chris Evans atThe Storage Architect Bloghas discussed the topic in the past.

At this point is FAST v1 something that should eventually be combined with FAST v2 before GA. Question remains, do we really need FAST v1 at this stage or can we wait for FAST v2. Will organizations skip the implementation of FAST v1 and directly go to FAST v2. Is the product being delayed intentionally, so the gap between FAST v1 and FAST v2 implementation becomes narrow and customers can rather jump to FAST v2 without FAST v1.

Well anyways, FAST is now over-over-due, 8 months into the announcement, but no product. Along with FAST v1 in early 2010, we will see a new version ofEnginuity Code for the Symmetrix V-Max and some other expected enhancements around V-Max.

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Some interesting links to dig more about FAST technology and its functionality.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/22/emc_fast/

http://gestaltit.com/all/tech/storage/stephen/emc-vmax-fast-coming-december/

http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Peeling_the_Onion_on_EMCs_VMax

http://storagenerve.com/2009/10/20/policy-policy-policy/

http://gestaltit.com/featured/top/gestalt/emc-unified-platform-storage-tiering/

Note: The dates in this blog post are totally based on announcements happened so far and future time lines are based on some industry buzz around FAST. Its impossible to know the exact dates of any product releases without an NDA.

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Enhancements to EMC Symmetrix V-Max Systems coming!!

October 14th, 2009Devang Panchigar0 Comments

Enhancements to EMC Symmetrix V-Max system 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 dont 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 G2 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 onGestaltITand byBarry 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 SLAs), 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 TBs 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 APIs 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 didnt 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.Edit 10/15/2009 12:50 PM:Not sure currently the technology that EMC uses for RapidIO, since Parallel RapidIO supports 250 Mhz to 1Ghz clocking speeds while Serial RapidIO supports 1.25Ghz to 3Ghz.

11. Drive connect speed upgrade from 4 Gbps to 8 Gbps

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 or 32 (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. We may not see anything related to interconnects in this upgrade, but 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 Interconnets 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 Saipetchand myself have speculated that concept onGestaltIT.

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.Edit 10/15/2009 12:50 PM:Enginuity more or less doesnt 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). Shouldnt 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) will support in-box and out-of-box (eg: Symmetrix to Clariion to Celerra to Centera) data movement through policy engine.

Ed Saipetchand myself have speculated onGestaltIT 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 posttalks 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.

EMC Symmetrix Management Console (SMC For Symmetrix V-Max Systems)

May 6th, 2009Devang Panchigar2 Comments

The Symmetrix Management Console is a very important step towards allowing customers take control of their Symmetrix V-Max Systems. With the newSymmetrix V-Maxcomes a new version of Symmetrix Management Console allowing customers to manage their EMC Symmetrix V-Max Systems through a GUI web browser interface with tons of new added features and wizards for usability.

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

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.

Virtual LUN Technology in works using a wizard

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 its not free anymore for V-Max Systems.

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

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

A post by StorageZilla onAuto Provisioning Groups with SMC

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