Learn how to integrate the VMAX and PowerMax with various VMware technologies
So which is the correct spelling of VMware's storage paradigm? If you said, "all of them?" it would be hard to fault you. VMware has gone through many iterations of the capitalization before landing on "VVols" for the past couple years anyway. Well it was too good to last and VMware is asking for another... Continue Reading →
One of the features of Virtual Volumes (VVols) is that when you take a VM snapshot it uses the array technology instead of VMware's host-based solution. If you use VMware with VMFS or NFS you are probably quite familiar with the sight of VMware's snapshot files which include a .vmsd file, a couple vmdks -... Continue Reading →
******** Update 8-5 ******** VMware has acknowledged that UNMAP is not being properly throttled to the value specified on a datastore. For instance, if you leave the datastore at the default UNMAP of 25 MB/s, VMware will not honor that. I've done recent testing showing consistent 1 GB/s rates for thick vmdks (thin rates vary,... Continue Reading →
Last May we introduced our latest SRDF SRA, version 9. This release offers a new feature, the ability to run a test failover when the production site is unavailable. I spoke about this in a post at that time which is available here. Some customers choose to run the test with just the host network... Continue Reading →
The next release of the vRO PowerMax plug-in is already here (officially the vRO Plug-in for PowerMax). If you missed the inaugural release, I wrote about it previously at this link. The primary feature of this release is SRDF support. Before getting into that, let's start with the "upgrade" process and do some other housekeeping... Continue Reading →
I wrote a Dell EMC KB (000533648) article last week about VAAI and SRDF performance considerations to assist customers in certain corner cases, but my support colleagues tell me they've had more than a few requests for the information, so I'm going to put most of it here as reference. The intent of the article... Continue Reading →
The latest version of Virtual Storage Integrator, aka VSI 8.1, is now available for download. Before getting into the VMAX All Flash/PowerMax enhancements, I thought I'd start with a reminder of the VSI plug-in structure since it has changed over its life. The latest HTML 5 plug-in, 8.x, is still a virtual appliance (vApp), but... Continue Reading →
Yesterday VMware released the latest SRM product, version 8.2. This release introduces an SRM virtual appliance that runs the Photon OS and within the OS containers for SRM itself and any supported SRAs. This release still offers a Windows-based solution, but VMware will eventually fully transition to the appliance. You can check out the release... Continue Reading →
This past week we had our Dell Technologies World 2019 event. I gave a presentation on VMware titled: In the next few weeks, all presentations will be posted on the DTW website, but I've converted mine into a PDF and made it available here early. DTW 2019 Past, Present, Future presentation I've also posted two... Continue Reading →
