VMAX/VMware TechBook terminal release

I've posted what is the terminal release of the TechBook Using Dell EMC VMAX and PowerMax in VMware vSphere Environments. For those not familiar with it, this book contains the general best practices of using VMware with the VMAX/PowerMax family of arrays. This latest update has, for the most part, minor changes, and will cover...

SRDF SRA TechBook 9.1

I published the latest SRDF SRA TechBook version 9.1 today. You can get it here. A reminder that this TechBook only covers SRA 9.x. Prior SRA versions are in the original TB which is located in the documentation library. Besides the changes for 9.1, I added some sections which I have covered in this blog...

vRO Plugin for PowerMax – vRA Automation

Though I've covered this previously with the other plugin, I thought it worthwhile to include it again for the PowerMax one, particularly as it supports vRA 7.5 so the interface is different from the other write-up. As a reminder I am using a simple vRA deployment - vApp and IAAS server - and a single...

TechBook update for PowerMax

Well PowerMax has been out for a few months now but I only just finished my VMAX/PowerMax/VMware TechBook update here. It's always a bear to be perfectly honest since it encompasses all best practices but the blog can only buy me so much time before we need it in official form. I've managed to get...

Unisphere for PowerMax – VMware integration

As I mentioned in my initial post on PowerMax, I wanted to use a separate post for Unisphere for PowerMax VMware integration. VMware integration has been part of Unisphere in one way or another since it was called Symmetrix Management Console. In its more recent form it consisted of showing information about ESXi hosts, their...

VMAX Plugin for vRO – workflows in vRA

I had promised this information in one of my previous posts on the plugin for vRO, but time got away from me and there were some more pressing things to cover. In truth, configuring vRA to execute vRO workflows is not a heavy lift. My guess is if you are familiar with vRA then you...

Dell EMC SRDF SRA 9.0, PowerMax and SRM 8.1

Today we posted the latest SRDF SRA 9.0 which is released in conjunction with our new PowerMax OS and Solutions Enabler 9.0. You can download both the Release Notes and software here. The most frequent question I have had as of late is what SRA supports the new SRM 8.1. It's this one. With that...

VSI 7.3.3 with vSphere 6.7 support

Only 3 days ago I wrote about VMware's new vSphere 6.7 release and cautioned that the current VSI release did not support it but a release was on the way...and today it has arrived. VSI 7.3.3. is now available for download. Just a couple things to know about this release. First, the release will supplant...

vSphere 6.7 & SRM 8.1

Today VMware has posted the newest release of their flagship vSphere product, 6.7. In addition they have also dropped Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 8.1. A new vSphere release always means lots of new features, and I'd be a fool to try to enumerate them seeing as there is a document for that. I'll mention a...

vSphere 6.7 automated UNMAP enhancements

Continuing from vSphere 6.7 post... So in vSphere 6.5 VMware introduced automated UNMAP for datastores. In so doing they offered users two option: on (default) or off. Rather than a checkbox, however, VMware has what appears to be a scale which would allow the user to decide how aggressive UNMAP should be. It didn't work...