Learn how to integrate the VMAX and PowerMax with various VMware technologies
Occasionally I'll get a question from a customer or even employee about doing failover testing in SRM with our SRDF SRA. While I have this documented extensively in the TechBook (TB), and most who contact me have been trying to use it, perhaps it is the very detailed nature of it that makes it challenging... Continue Reading →
******** Update 10-14 ******** VMware has formalized the fix I tested and it is set to be included in the next patch for vSphere 6.7 which I believe should come by the end of the year. If the issue is causing major problems in your environment, however, you could open an SR and request the... Continue Reading →
VSI 8.2 is now GA and brings a few features for the PowerMax/VMAX platform. The binary and documentation are available on the support site here. The product guide contains information on upgrading from earlier releases which is made all the more easy with DockerHub. If required (e.g. isolated environments) you can upgrade via a package.... Continue Reading →
I've had lots of questions for this particular Dell EMC Technical Advisory (DTA) so although it is not resolved, I wanted to explain what we currently know. Let me start by saying we have only a small number of our customers who have experienced this issue - less than 1% who match the environment. However,... Continue Reading →
Today is general availability for the new PowerMaxOS release. As I've done for previous releases, I want to cover the features/improvements that have some relationship to VMware environments. I will be adding this information into my whitepapers and TechBooks over the course of perhaps the next month, but for now it will be available here... Continue Reading →
The SRDF Storage Replication Adapter (SRDF SRA) version 9.1 is now available for download. This release, as you might guess from the version, is associated with our new PowerMax 5978.444.444 release. In addition to the requisite support for the new PowerMax release, the SRA has a couple of new features as well as new support.... Continue Reading →
With the new PowerMaxOS 5978.444.444 release, you can now expand SRDF/Metro devices, and thus the VMware datastores built on top of them, online. You may recall in our current release you can expand SRDF/Metro devices but it does require suspending access to the R2 by changing the RDF mode to synchronous. I wrote this up... Continue Reading →
One area of VMware/PowerMax integration that has frustrated customers since inception is the inability to get VAAI command information from the array. The VAAI paper mentions that there is a column available called "Extent Based Clone" which will display source or target depending on how the device is being used; but that has very limited... Continue Reading →
Today at VMworld Scott Delandy (@scottdelandy) and I did a presentation on using VMware Cloud Foundation with PowerMax as a Workload Domain. This is a new capability VMware is offering so that customers are able to use existing infrastructure as part of their VCF environment. Since VMware's SDDC Manager cannot control the PowerMax, you instead... Continue Reading →
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 →
