PPME PowerMax to PowerFlex – physical

This post continues from the last one which introduced you to PowerPath Migration Enabler, or PPME. Here we want to look at migrating devices from PowerMax to PowerFlex using PPME on a physical box. To demonstrate how the process is accomplished while online, an Oracle database will remain running on the PowerMax source devices during...

PowerPath Migration Enabler (PPME)

As so many of our customers move from one of our platforms to another, I thought it would be useful to write about the inherent migration capability of our multipathing software PowerPath. It is known as PowerPath Migration Enabler. I plan on doing this over a few posts to cover some of the different use...

VSI 10.1 – HPP for PowerMax NVMeoF devices

A quick update for the latest VSI release 10.1. Most of the new features are for PowerStore but one of my requests for PowerMax made it into the release. I asked development to add the ability to set host best practices for NVMeoF devices. This is similar to the best practices for NMP, except that...

ESA 7.1

This post is one of the rare ones where I can cover both PowerFlex and PowerMax together since I'll be discussing Enterprise Storage Analytics (ESA) release 7.1. ESA 7.1 is not a major release, and yet is an important one for PowerFlex. There are three major features, or rather new support in this release: vRealize...

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....

PowerFlex, CSIs and VMware CNS with vVols

In this post I'll cover both the vSphere CSI and the PowerFlex CSI. Since both are utilized in a VMware environment, let's start there. vSphere and Kubernetes VMware has made Kubernetes or K8s, an integral part of their vSphere solution. Whether as part of vSphere in the form of Tanzu (with or without VCF), or...

Partial SRDF/Metro 3-site with SRM (SRA)

I recently ran across a customer configuration I had not seen before with 3-site SRDF/Metro (ASYNC leg with failovertoasync site set in Global XML), and it gave me some concern. Let me talk about the setup and then cover the concerning aspects. I will say from the outset, I actually didn't think this setup was...

VDI – vVol Linked Clones

Many enterprise customers use at least part of their infrastructure to host VDI environments or virtual desktops. Even at Dell I can order up one of these desktops through a self-service catalog if the need arises. I've seen a variety of different types of VDI implementations from NFS to FC, sometimes on a small dedicated...

NVMe/TCP with PowerFlex 4.0

Yes, that's not a typo: PowerFlex not PowerMax. In truth I work on both PowerMax and PowerFlex, but going forward I expect to spend more time on PowerFlex so more blog posts on that platform will be inevitable. Fortunately there's a good deal of overlap between the platform features like our topic today, so it...