PowerMax CSI v2.4 – REST 10, SRDF changes

PowerMax CSI v2.4 is available on GitHub now and can be found here. This CSI is one developed by Dell which enables provisioning of PowerMax volumes to kubernetes environments. While it is typically used in physical environments where both FC and iSCSI are common, it can also be used in VMware environments when the VM...

Change in automatic UNMAP in vSphere 7

For the past few weeks I've been testing some upcoming features in vSphere.beta. In so doing, I was seeing some odd UNMAP behavior. VMware did not appear to be honoring the different UNMAP values I set. So I opened a bug and I asked VMware development about it. After a couple weeks I was told...

VASA Provider certificates

This one is not in my wheelhouse by a long shot, but having recently assisted our sales team with one of their customers, it is clear our documentation on certificates with the VASA Provider (VP) is lacking. My intent is to present the options available to the user with the VP certs. I'm not going...

Dell ESA 7.0

Our second release today which supports the new PowerMaxOS 10 and thus REST API 10, as well as the new platforms PowerMax 2500/8500, is Dell (nix EMC) Storage Analytics or ESA 7.0. I'm focusing on PowerMax obviously, but there are lots of other features for the other platforms if you use those. The main features...

Dell VSI 10.0

One of two plugin releases today along with ESA, the Dell (nix EMC) VSI 10.0 plugin that supports the latest Unisphere REST 10 is available for download. This release supports our latest PowerMaxOS 10 and PowerMax 2500/8500 arrays. Besides that general support, there are two main features added in VSI 10 for the PowerMax array:...

PowerMax 2500/8500 GA software posting

You'll recall we announced our new PowerMax platform, the 2500/8500, back in May of this year. Well, today 7/19/22, both the hardware and software released. While the new array obviously must be ordered, the various software products can be downloaded on delltechnologies.com. I have a number of posts on this site which cover the new...

Unisphere 10 VMware missing info

Never one to avoid the issues in our software, I wanted to tell you about a bug that surfaced late in our VMware integration in Unisphere. I don't know how widely it is utilized, but I have had positive feedback from storage administrators about the integration because it gives them insight into the VMware environment,...

NVMe/TCP and SRDF (with VMware)

I'm not sure this topic requires a full post, but if you don't work with NVMeoF technology much, you may assume that it is just a different way to connect to your storage and everything else functions pretty much the same as it does with FC/iSCSI connectivity. Spoiler - it doesn't. Here I am interested...

PowerMax File Replication Failover

Sorry for the delay from the previous PowerMax File Replication post, but I had lots of other tasks related to the release I had to complete so I just had a chance to get back to File. I wanted to complete our discussion by showing both planned and unplanned failover. We'll take it from the...

VSI 9.1

I had a request to do an updated post on Virtual Storage Integrator or VSI. The last post I did was on version 8.6 which had some new features for the PowerMax array. And although the current version 9.1 released in January does not have new features for PowerMax, the interface has changed a bit...