I’ve posted the newest build of the content pack for the PowerMax array in conjunction with the announcement of our newest platform – the PowerMax 2500 and 8500. In alignment with the new naming I spoke about in my GA blog post, the content pack will now be named the Dell PowerMax Content Pack (DPCP). You’ll notice in addition to EMC I also dropped the VMAX name. As that platform ages out, we want to stick with just the PowerMax name. Rest assured the DPCP (that’s not an official abbreviation I’m just lazy) supports the VMAX arrays, but since both Solutions Enabler and Unisphere for PowerMax are backward compatible, you should use the latest versions of those softwares when configuring events to send to syslog.
As you know if you use content packs with Log Insight, one of the good things about them is they can’t “break” anything in the traditional sense. If log formats change the content pack may fail to display information in dashboards, but that’s about it. For example, if you don’t want to upgrade yet, I’ve tested my previous version 1.3 with the new platform and it functions fine.
Let’s go through the new things in v1.4.
Changes/updates
Upgrade
As I have changed the name of the content pack, you’ll need to uninstall the previous content pack before installing this one. If you have made any customizations in your environment they will persist as they are not stored in the content pack itself but the user area.
User-defined fields
In conjunction with those naming changes I mentioned, I’ve altered the user-defined fields in DPCP. Instead of the prefix dellemc_vpmax_, it is now simply dell_pmax_. There are four new fields, their function apparent in the naming:
- dell_pmax_fe_portname
- dell_pmax_iscsi_dir_ip
- dell_pmax_wp_cache_threshold
- dell_pmax_wp_cache_value
Naming
Some general naming changes – removed VMAX and EMC references in all descriptions, alerts, etc.
Dashboards
Overview
• Added “Alert Queries” widget
• Removed “Number of unique thin pools in log entries” widget
Service levels
No change
Problems
• Added “WP cache threshold events” widget
• Added “Thin pool utilization > 70%” widget from Thin pool overview
Local & remote replication
No change
Virtual volumes (vVols)
No change
Thin pool overview
Removed
Auditing
No change
Posting
Sometimes it takes time for VMware to get the content pack into the marketplace that is accessible from the application. In the meantime you can find it on the VMware Marketplace website here. The updated paper is in the documentation library.
Dell PowerFlex and PowerMax with VMware 
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