PowerMaxOS 5978 Q3 2020 release

Today we officially launched the latest PowerMaxOS (5978.669.669) which, along with accompanying software releases, offers some new VMware capabilities that have been in high demand from our customers. Most notably, these include support for replication with VMware Virtual Volumes (vVol) - vVols 2.0/VASA 3.0 support - and support for the SRM Appliance with our SRDF...

SRDF/Metro Smart DR

One of the new features we released with the latest PowerMaxOS is known as SRDF/Metro Smart DR, or MetroDR for short. MetroDR expands the previous functionality of a third leg off the R1 or R2 of an SRDF/Metro pair by allowing either the R1 or R2 to update the third leg. In essence this is...

vVols, SRDF, and VMware SRM on PowerMax

We have finally released our long awaited VASA 3 implementation for vVols 2.0 which includes support for SRDF Asynchronous (SRDF/A) replication. Lack of replication support has been a blocker for many customers to even look at vVols since a DR solution is such an essential component of a business (as it should be). And having...

Snapshot metrics in VMware Virtual Volumes (vVols)

I was working on an update to the vVol whitepaper for our next release (VASA 3), and I realized that I failed to include a more detailed explanation of snapshot reporting in the VASA 2 paper. I'll try to get that done in the next couple weeks (done), but in the meantime let me run...

Non-Disruptive Migration (NDM) with VMware

Non-Disruptive Migration, or NDM, is a capability offered on our arrays that allows you to move from an older array to a newer array with no downtime (hence non-disruptive). NDM has been around for years at this point, but I see it infrequently in VMware environments because of the use of VMware's own NDM, Storage...

Custom create volumes workflow in vRO PowerMax Plug-in

Our REST API is quite versatile and as you may have recently seen, we continue to take advantage of the capabilities it has via the PowerMax Plug-in; but of course it can't do everything. One of our customers recently requested the ability to create devices on the array without having to add them to a...

vRO Plug-in for Dell EMC PowerMax Version 1.2

Version 1.2 of the PowerMax vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) Plug-in is now available for download from our support site or the VMware Marketplace. For those new to vRO or the plug-in, the PowerMax Plug-in allows users to run workflows using the REST API (part of Unisphere for PowerMax) to automate both provisioning and protection, among other...

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...

Dell EMC Enterprise Storage Analytics 5.0

A new release of Dell EMC ESA is now available for download. Software and documentation can be found here. This release supports the newest platforms (Dell EMC and VMware) and fixes a couple bugs, one of which impacts the PowerMax. Here is the excerpt from the Release Notes: The new support for Dell EMC is...

PowerMax 5978.444.444

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...