PowerFlex 4.0.1 and VMware SRM

We've released PowerFlex version 4.0.1 which comprises a lot of improvements to the base 4.0 version. If you are currently running version 4.0, I strongly recommend you work with your Dell team to plan an upgrade. Both versions of PowerFlex 4.x still require Dell's assistance to install, so unfortunately you cannot download the software yourself....

vCLS and Virtual Volumes

vCLS vCLS or vSphere Cluster Services was introduced in vSphere 7.0 U1 as a way to manage vSphere DRS and vSphere HA with the intended goal, as far as I understand it, to allow these services to eventually run without the vCenter (not yet). vCLS is represented by eponymous VMs, with 1-3 per vSphere cluster....

PowerMax Migration – SCSI -> NVMe/TCP

For the past two posts (1, 2) I've covered using PowerPath Migration Enabler (PPME) to move data between Dell storage arrays. PPME, however, can also be used to migrate devices within a single array, in this case PowerMax. One of the best use cases for this is when you are ready to make the leap...

PPME PowerMax to PowerFlex – virtual

This is the second example from the post which introduced you to PowerPath Migration Enabler, or PPME. While the first example was a migration on a physical host, by far the more common scenario, for the second example, I'm going to move data within a VMware VM from PowerMax to PowerFlex. Yes, these are the...

PPME PowerMax to PowerFlex – physical

This post continues from the last one which introduced you to PowerPath Migration Enabler, or PPME. Here we want to look at migrating devices from PowerMax to PowerFlex using PPME on a physical box. To demonstrate how the process is accomplished while online, an Oracle database will remain running on the PowerMax source devices during...

PowerPath Migration Enabler (PPME)

As so many of our customers move from one of our platforms to another, I thought it would be useful to write about the inherent migration capability of our multipathing software PowerPath. It is known as PowerPath Migration Enabler. I plan on doing this over a few posts to cover some of the different use...

VSI 10.1 – HPP for PowerMax NVMeoF devices

A quick update for the latest VSI release 10.1. Most of the new features are for PowerStore but one of my requests for PowerMax made it into the release. I asked development to add the ability to set host best practices for NVMeoF devices. This is similar to the best practices for NMP, except that...

ESA 7.1

This post is one of the rare ones where I can cover both PowerFlex and PowerMax together since I'll be discussing Enterprise Storage Analytics (ESA) release 7.1. ESA 7.1 is not a major release, and yet is an important one for PowerFlex. There are three major features, or rather new support in this release: vRealize...

PowerFlex with VMware SRM

Now that I've covered replication on the PowerFlex, we can move right into VMware SRM. Like all storage-based replication, PowerFlex has an SRA that integrates with SRM and executes those tasks specific to the PowerFlex. The current version of the SRA is 1.0.0.1 and supports through PowerFlex 3.x. Support for 4.x is currently undergoing certification....

PowerFlex Replication

I thought I'd take a couple posts to cover PowerFlex replication as it is such a critical component of most customers' VMware environment. Having worked so long with PowerMax replication, the PowerFlex implementation in comparison is quite nascent, only supporting an asynchronous mode. In my experience this is the normal progression of replication development, however....