PowerFlex SRA whitepaper

I finally finished the new whitepaper for using the PowerFlex SRA with VMware SRM. The paper covers PowerFlex 3.x and 4.x using asynchronous replication (the only kind we support). For anyone who has had the unpleasant experience of using my 400 page SRDF SRA tome for PowerMax, you'll be happy to know this paper is...

PowerFlex 4.0.1 and VMware SRM

We've released PowerFlex version 4.0.1 which comprises a lot of improvements to the base 4.0 version. If you are currently running version 4.0, I strongly recommend you work with your Dell team to plan an upgrade. Both versions of PowerFlex 4.x still require Dell's assistance to install, so unfortunately you cannot download the software yourself....

PPME PowerMax to PowerFlex – virtual

This is the second example from the post which introduced you to PowerPath Migration Enabler, or PPME. While the first example was a migration on a physical host, by far the more common scenario, for the second example, I'm going to move data within a VMware VM from PowerMax to PowerFlex. Yes, these are the...

PowerFlex with VMware SRM

Now that I've covered replication on the PowerFlex, we can move right into VMware SRM. Like all storage-based replication, PowerFlex has an SRA that integrates with SRM and executes those tasks specific to the PowerFlex. The current version of the SRA is 1.0.0.1 and supports through PowerFlex 3.x. Support for 4.x is currently undergoing certification....

PowerFlex Replication

I thought I'd take a couple posts to cover PowerFlex replication as it is such a critical component of most customers' VMware environment. Having worked so long with PowerMax replication, the PowerFlex implementation in comparison is quite nascent, only supporting an asynchronous mode. In my experience this is the normal progression of replication development, however....

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...

Oracle RAC on VMFS – SnapVX restore for testing

I've had some questions from customers running Oracle RAC on VMFS who would like to use TimeFinder/SnapVX to test, rather than Oracle tools like RMAN. This is a sensible course given that for large databases RMAN takes a long time to restore, and SnapVX is basically instantaneous. But why use either solution when I can...

SRDF SRA and SRM Test Failover review

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...

SRDF/Metro and vMSC BPs WP

I finally managed to cobble together enough time to complete a whitepaper on best practices when running Dell EMC SRDF/Metro with VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC) that has been on my list for some time. I have an older paper on this topic but its focus was more on the application side - in...

VMworld Europe update – NVMeoF

I'm attending VMworld in Barcelona Spain this week delivering a session on NVM and NVMe, the same one I delivered in Las Vegas in fact...well almost. Our development team has made some great progress on the next generation of connectivity, NVMeoF or NVMe over fabric, so I am including a demonstration on that. To that...