vSphere 6.x and VAAI performance boost on VMAX

***Update - as more customers move to vSphere 6.x on VMAX, I expect this topic to be more poignant.  So I want to point out something about the changes detailed below.  The new changes for vSphere 6.x and XCOPY are ONLY for VMAX and no other arrays - not VNX, not XtremIO, not VPLEX, etc....

VMAX3 and RP for VMs to my rescue

Although RP for VMs (RP4VM) has been out for a while now, and there are plenty of other blogs and documentation, I thought I'd just recount one scenario I ran into where it really saved me.  Now make no mistake I am a VMAX guy and my replication/DR solution of choice is SRDF 🙂  But...

VMAX Content Pack in the Age of vRealize

If you're wondering about the title, VMware decided some time ago to rename a suite of their products to "vRealize" from "vCenter".  As I am not in marketing nor work for VMware I can't expound on the reasoning for the rename but I can tell you what it means to me is I have to...

VMAX3 Q4 GA – RDF/SNAPVX/XCOPY

The Q4 release of VMAX3/HYPERMAX OS is here.  As Less Grossman would say "Welcome to the goody room!"  This release has the features we have been waiting for since the VMAX3 went GA (yes I know barely 2 months ago) - Local/Remote replication and the return of the VAAI primitive Full Copy (or XCOPY) among...

ESA 2.4.1 GA – VPLEX, VMAX FAST VP

Another release of EMC Storage Analytics is on the books.  For those keeping track these come out quarterly (or as close as we can get them).  Our last release (2.3.2) was minor in that it basically covered a couple new models on the VNXe line.  This release is major, adding a new platform:  VPLEX (note...

VSI 6.3 releases with new VMAX enhancements

VSI 6.3 released today and contains some new VMAX features I have been requesting (along with many customers).  When VSI moved from its Classic form into the Web Client, the initial VMAX integration was extremely basic.  Over the past many months I have worked closely with development to re-incorporate many of the features I saw...

VMAX3 is GA!

The VMAX3 (100K, 200K, 400K), the latest evolution in our high-end storage arrays (Symmetrix), officially went GA today.  This platform has been some time in the making and it took the combined effort and long hours of many individuals in engineering to bring it to fruition.  As there will be many other blogs/announcements concerning VMAX3...

VMware SRM 5.8 GA with EMC SRDF SRA

A couple days ago VMware released Site Recovery Manager 5.8.  Ben Meadowcroft from VMware has a nice write-up of the major features it contains which you can find here: http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/ .  Although there are lots of items on the list, the most obvious change is the removal of the vSphere Client (thick client) and integration...

New release of EMC Storage Analytics (ESA) available – 2.3.2

Today EMC released the latest version of ESA - 2.3.2.  This release focuses on the VNXe platform but also introduces support for the VNX-F5000 and VNX-F8000.  Here are the major additions in this release: An OEM version of vCenter Operations Manager 5.8.2 that is for EMC storage only (for those without vCOPS already) New and...

VASA Registration Problems Revisited

Back in June I published an entry on resolving VASA registration issues (https://drewtonnesen.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/vmax-vasa-and-registration-failure-in-vcenter/).  In it I covered some of the more common problems you are likely to hit when attempting to register the VASA Provider in VMware vCenter.  Through many customer issues I have come to find that one of the simpler solutions, when the...